Four Seasons in NY: Gems of Japanese Music Vol. 29

We invite you to celebrate the autumn season with us at Four Seasons in New York: Gems of Japanese Music Vol. 29 by the acclaimed vocalist and koto and shamisen player Yoko Reikano Kimura on Sunday, November 19, 2023 at 4pm in the award-winning White Room at CRS. For the first concert of 2023-2024 season, Yoko will perform a classical koto piece, “Godan Ginuta” composed by outstanding composer, Mitsuhashi-kengyo in the Edo period as well as two more works. Special guest will be kinko style shakuhachi performer, Elizabeth Brown. This concert is presented by CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) and Yoko Reikano Kimura and is supported by Hogaku Journal and Mar Creation, Inc.

Tickets are $30 cash only at the door. To RSVP, email info@yokoreikanokimura.com

“…Yoko Reikano Kimura, playing the shamisen and singing, is superb….” — New York Times
“…Kimura’s voice was rich and full-bodied ….” — KC METROPLIS

About Four Seasons in New York – Gems of Japanese Music

New York’s music scene reflects the diverse and vibrant culture of the city. Kimura, together with CRS (Center for Remembering and Sharing), began this concert series in the fall of 2015. As a Japanese instrumentalist, she hopes to introduce the brilliance of traditional Japanese music, which is still being passed on to future generations after many centuries. Starting with the 2018-19 season, the series has featured contemporary pieces composed by living composers as well. Since the first concert, about 50 works from the classical repertoire have been introduced in the concert series. Please come and experience the sounds of koto and shamisen and enjoy the taste of the four seasons here in New York!

About past performances: https://www.yokoreikanokimura.com/projects/fourseasons/

About the Artists

YOKO REIKANO KIMURA is a distinguished virtuoso of Japanese koto, shamisen performer and singer in both traditional and contemporary music. Kimura has concertized in about 20 countries around the world based in New York and Japan. Following her studies at the Tokyo University of the Arts, she studied at Institute of Traditional Japanese Music, an affiliate of Senzoku Gakuen College of Music in Japan. Kimura was awarded a scholarship from the Agency of Cultural Affairs of Japan. Her teachers include Kono Kameyama, Akiko Nishigata and Senko Yamabiko, a Living National Treasure. Awards include the First prize at the prestigious 10th Kenjun Memorial National Koto Competition and the First prize at the 4th Great Wall International Music Competition. Kimura performed at the Kabuki-za in Tokyo, accompanying Danjuro Ichikawa XII. Her performances have been broadcasted on NHK-FM’s Hogaku no Hitotoki, NPR’s Performance Today and WKCR. As a koto soloist, Kimura has performed Daron Hagen’s Koto Concerto: Genji with the Wintergreen Music Festival Orchestra conducted by Mei-Ann Chen and several string quartets. As a shamisen soloist, she performed Kin’ichi Nakanoshima’s Shamisen Concerto at the National Olympic Memorial Youth Center.

Her performances have been featured at many opera and theater works, such as Michi Wiancko’s Murasaki’s Moon at Metropolitan Museum, Piestro Mascagni’s Iris by American Symphony Orchestra, Basil Twist’s Dogugaeshi, Yasuko Yokoshi’s Bell and many others.

Kimura is a founder of Duo YUMENO, with cellist Hikaru Tamaki. The duo received the Kyoto Aoyama Barock Saal Award in 2015, and featured at Chamber Music America’s 2016 National Conference, and performed at the John F. Kennedy Center in 2017. In 2019, the duo had its ten-year anniversary recital at Carnegie Hall.
yokoreikanokimura.com | duoyumeno.com

Elizabeth Brown combines a composing career with a diverse performing life, playing flute, shakuhachi, and theremin in a wide variety of musical circles. Her chamber music, shaped by this unique group of instruments and experiences, has been called luminous, dreamlike and hallucinatory.

Brown’s music has been heard in Japan, Russia, Colombia, Australia, South Africa and Vietnam as well as across the US and Europe. A Guggenheim Fellowship recipient and Juilliard graduate, she has received grants, awards and commissions from Orpheus, St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, Newband, The Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, Kamratōn, the Barlow Foundation, the Asian Cultural Council, the Japan/US Friendship Commission, Music from Japan, Meet the Composer, the Electronic Music Foundation, Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, the Cary Trust, and NYFA, among others. She has two solo CDs: Elizabeth Brown: Mirage (New World) and Blue Minor: Chamber Music by Elizabeth Brown (Albany), and her music is also available on CRI, Innova, and Music and Arts. She has been Artist-in-Residence at the Hanoi National Conservatory and in Grand Canyon National Park, and a fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center in Italy and at the MacDowell Colony.

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