Home » Jazz Musicians » Izumi Kimura

Izumi Kimura

Pianist Izumi Kimura explores between abstract and concrete, improvising and composing. She has performed extensively throughout Ireland and abroad since moving from Japan in 1995, and worked with some of the leading performers and ensembles from both disciplines of classical, jazz and improvised music, including RTE Symphony Orchestra, RTE Concert Orchestra, Crash Ensemble, Michael d’Arcy, Mia Cooper, Ken Edge, Benjamin Dwyer, Gerald Barry, John Buckley, Kevin O’Connell, Ian Wilson, Fergus Johnston from the world of classical music, and with jazz and improvising musicians including Barry Guy, Gerry Hemingway, Tommy Halferty, Ronan Guilfoyle, Michael Buckley, Joe O’Callaghan, Oki Itaru, Dominique Pifarély, Benoît Delbecq, Stéphane Payen, Marco Colonna, Sarah Buechi, Lina Andonovska, Mathew Jacobson, Nick Roth, Colm O’Hara, Cora Venus Lunny. She has appeared in the festivals including RTE Living Music Festival, Boyle Arts Festival, Dublin Dance Festival, Dublin Fringe Festival, Bray Jazz Festival, Kilkenny Arts Festival, Ghent Street Festival of New Music, Music 21’s ‘Brazil Now’, ‘Artes Da Irlanda’ in Sao Paolo, Creative Connexions in Sitges, Ad Libitum Festival in Warsaw, and many more.

Albums
Asymmetry (22 solo piano pieces by Japanese and Irish composers) 2010 Diatribe Records with funding from the Art Council Music Recording Scheme, managed by Music Network.

Maelstrom (with Tommy Halferty) 2016 Self Release
Illuminated Silence (with Barry Guy and Gerry Hemingway) 2019 Fundacja Słuchaj
Silent Tree (with Sankhara - Joe O’Callaghan and Derek Whyte)
Folding (with Anthony Kelly and Cora Venus Lunny) 2021 Farpoint Recordings
Invisible Resistances (with Cora Venus Lunny) 2022 Farpoint Recordings
Kind of Light (with Artur Majewski, Barry Guy and Ramon Lopez) 2022 Fundacja Słuchaj Kind of Shadow (with Artur Majewski, Barry Guy and Ramon Lopez) 2023 Fundacja Słuchaj Upcoming
Kairos (with Gerry Hemingway) 2023 Fundacja Słuchaj
Adaptation (with Joe O’Callaghan - Ian Wilson, compositon) 2000
Mixed Circuits (David Bremner, compositon) 2022 Farpoint Recordings

 

 

 


Tags

20
Interview

Izumi Kimura: Translating The World Into Music

Read "Izumi Kimura: Translating The World Into Music" reviewed by Ian Patterson


Music may not be the most important thing in the world, not with all the turmoil that is going on, but it would be hard to envisage life without it. At the very least music can be a balm in stormy times, a distraction from the madness. Plenty of philosophers have waxed lyrical about the importance of music, but perhaps Jack Kerouac was closest to the mark when he wrote 'The only truth is music.' For ...

11
Album Review

Izumi Kimura & Gerry Hemingway: Kairos

Read "Kairos" reviewed by Ian Patterson


In ancient Greek kairos means the right time for action. The word relates both to archery and weaving. It is an apt title for pianist Izumi Kimura and drummer/percussionist Gerry Hemingway's debut duo album, as in-the-moment intent, precision and intricacy course through their dialogues. No strangers to one another, they first played as duo in 2016, and then in a trio with Barry Guy on Illuminated Silence (Fundacja Sluchaj, 2019). Compositional credits are shared, though the structures are really frames ...

7
Album Review

Izumi Kimura & Cora Venus Lunny: Invisible Resistances

Read "Invisible Resistances" reviewed by Ian Patterson


Take two of contemporary music's most versatile improvising musicians, give them free reign to play and something of real worth is likely to arise. That is the philosophy of Farpoint Recordings, an Irish label founded by Anthony Kelly and David Stalling in 2004. Their trust in pianist Izumi Kimura and violinist/viola player Cora Venus Lunny is well founded. Fearless performers both, they work in a wide variety of improvised, genre-fluid settings that draw variously from folk, jazz and beyond. On ...

10
Album Review

Izumi Kimura, Cora Venus Lunny, Anthony Kelly: Folding

Read "Folding" reviewed by Ian Patterson


Inspired by environmental sounds in the townlands surrounding Dún Laoghaire, County Dublin, Folding brings together Irish sound artist Anthony Kelly and two of Ireland's preeminent contemporary musicians, Yokohama-born pianist Izumi Kimura and violinist Cora Venus Lunny, reunited here following their memorable performance at Improvised Music Company's Ban Bam festival in 2017. The song titles reflect the bucolic nature of this project, though there is plenty of passion in Kimura and Lunny's interplay. With his pristine recordings of the sea, wind, ...

5
Album Review

Izumi Kimura, Barry Guy, Gerry Hemingway: Illuminated Silence

Read "Illuminated Silence" reviewed by Ian Patterson


Although Illuminated Silence is nominally billed as a trio of equals—and, musically speaking, it is just that—it was Japanese pianist Izumi Kimura's lead that brought long-standing musical collaborators Barry Guy and Gerry Hemingway together in Dublin for this live date at St. Ann's Church. Kimura is well known in Ireland—her home for over twenty years—as a brilliant technician and a fearless improviser, and it will come as no surprise to her admirers that Kimura more than holds her own with ...

Read more articles

"A fearless explorer of the contemporary music landscape ... Kimura brings a combination of feral creativity and technical virtuosity to the stage that belies her calm demeanour" The Irish Times

"Meditative, subtly provocative, impressionistic and consistently alluring"

"Music unfolded as a journey of constant revelations" All About Jazz

Kimura, Lunny and Kelly: Folding review – startlingly beautiful

Read more

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Kairos

Fundacja Sluchaj
2023

buy

Invisible Resistances

Farpoint Recordings
2022

buy

Folding

Farpoint Recordings
2021

buy

Illuminated Silence

Fundacja Sluchaj
2019

buy

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.