PLEASE ENJOY THESE RECENT ARTICLES ON MARI KIMURA:

New York Times Arts & Leisure:
For a Violinist, Success Means a New Low Point. Since Pythagoras, musicians and scientists have known (or thought they knew) that the lowest pitch a string stretched taut can produce--the fundamental--is the pitch it produces when vibrating freely....Theoretically, there is no ceiling. As with dancing, the sky’s the limit, but the floor is always the floor. For the last five centuries, give or take, the range of a violin bottomed out on the G below middle C, the pitch of the open G string. But fiddlers are not like dancers after all. By Matthew Gurewitsch.

Scientific American:
"Subharmonics" innovator Mari Kimura connects herself with a computer using a wireless, fingerless glove that meticulously tracks bow strokes to get to the root of expression. By Larry Greenemeier.

New York 1:
Motion tracking technology has revolutionized violin playing for one adept performer. This story by NY1’s Adam Balkin contains video shot at Mari Kimura's concert at Bohemian Hall May 24, 2011.

WNYC New Sounds Live:
"How Low Can You Go?  Episode #3209 explores "ways of achieving the low end - in Mari Kimura's case, there's the subharmonics of her violin, which she has achieved by a 3-step technique that she describes as "clunk, drag, and release" to uncover notes as much as an octave deeper than the low G string." By John Schaefer

MARI KIMURA WEBSITE
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Born in Tokyo, Japan to two professors (father, architecture; mother, law), she began violin lessons at the age of five. After earning a Bachelors' degree in violin performance from the Toho School, Japan's top conservatory, she moved to the US to study with Roman Totenberg at Boston University. One semester away from a Masters' degree, she needed an extra credit to maintain her student visa. Out of curiosity, she chose an electronic music course, setting her on a new artistic path – in her words, "carrying on the old traditions of the violin while using the tools of our age."

She entered the Juilliard School's doctoral program on a full scholarship, studying with principal teacher Joseph Fuchs and serving as an assistant in Juilliard's electronic music studio. She began composition studies with Mario Davidovsky at Columbia University, and served as a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA). There she was introduced to computer-based live signal processing, and wrote "U" (The Cormorant), her first major work for violin and tape.

In 1992, she composed "ALT," an acoustic solo violin work that incorporated her newly-developed Subharmonics technique for the first time. A series of important recitals followed, including her Japanese debut in Tokyo's Casals Hall and a League of Composers/ISCM Recital Award concert at Merkin Hall. The latter program included "ALT," introducing the public to Subharmonics and was enthusiastically reviewed by Edward Rothstein in The New York Times. Her breakthrough drew international attention from both the musical and scientific communities. Her work was mentioned in Physics and Physics Today and she was invited to demonstrate Subharmonics at the Acoustical Society of America's 1995 meeting. Since then, more than a dozen articles about Subharmonics have appeared in musical and scientific journals, including several authored by Kimura herself.

Following her graduation from Juilliard in 1993, Kimura began to gain increasing prominence as a soloist and recitalist, performing her own music and others' in more than 20 countries throughout Europe, Asia, and the Americas. She has premiered many notable works, including John Adams's "Violin Concerto" (Japanese premiere), Luciano Berio's "Sequenza VIII "(US premiere), Tania Léon's "Axon" for violin and computer (world premiere), and Salvatore Sciarrino's "6 Capricci" (US premiere), among others. In 2007, Kimura introduced Jean-Claude Risset's violin concerto, "Schemes," at Suntory Hall with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra. The cadenza she wrote for the concerto, incorporating advanced Subharmonics, was subsequently published in Strings.

Her star has risen steadily as a composer. She was chosen as a Composer-in-Residence at the Other Minds Festival in San Francisco, and was commissioned by American Composers Forum to write her first orchestral work, a Violin Concerto premiered at the Callejon de Ruído Festival in Guanajuato, Mexico in 1999. She also won a commission from the International Computer Music Association, resulting in her Cuban-inspired "Descarga Interactiva," premiered in Göteborg, Sweden. Further commissions followed from the AMDaT dance compony, baritone Thomas Buckner, Harvestworks, Music from Japan, and others.

Kimura's multifaceted career is compellingly documented on her last commercial recording, "Polytopia" (Bridge, 2005), which includes music by Jean-Claude Risset, Conlon Nancarrow, Tania León, Milica Paranosic, Frances White, Robert Rowe, and Kimura herself. Various tracks find her accompanied by electronic sound, interactive computer, and the GuitarBot, a computer-controlled mechanical stringed instrument created by the League of Electronic Music Urban Robots (LEMUR). Allmusic praised "Polytopia" as "a highly satisfying debut from a superlative artist who recognizes that the twenty-first century has turned a new page in the relationship between music and technology; she is utilizing all of her super powers to guarantee that her instrument -- the violin -- doesn't get left behind."

Kimura is also active as an improvising musician; three recordings feature her in that role. Her first CD, "Acoustics," released in 1993 on the Victo label, is a collaboration with guitarist/world music producer Henry Kaiser, together with guitarist Jim O'Rourke (formerly of Sonic Youth) and saxophonist John Oswald. "Irrefragable Dreams," an album of improvisations with avant-garde flutist Robert Dick, followed in 1996; Allmusic called it "poetic…highly recommended." She teamed up with improvising multi-instrumentalist Roberto Morales Manzanares for "Leyendas" (1999), described by Strings magazine as "simply stunning… Kimura brings a rare level of excitement and grandeur to improvised music."

Ms. Kimura will be appearing as a soloist with Hamburg Symphony (Hamburger Sinfoniker) on November 25, performing John Adams' "The Dharma in the Big Sur" with Jonathan Stockhammer, cond.  at the Klangwerktage Hamburg Festival.  She is also scheduled to be interviewed and perform on Radio France (show to be aired on September 5).

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