(; born 1962) is a Japanese

violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...

ist and

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

best known for her use of

subharmonic In music, the undertone series or subharmonic series is a sequence of notes that results from inverting the intervals of the overtone series. While overtones naturally occur with the physical production of music on instruments, undertones mus ...

s, which, achieved through special bowing techniques, allow pitches below the instrument's normal range. She is credited with "introducing" the use of violin subharmonics, which allow a violinist to play a full

octave In music, an octave (: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is an interval between two notes, one having twice the frequency of vibration of the other. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referr ...

below the low G on the violin without adjusting the tuning of the instrument. She studied violin with Joseph Fuchs,

Roman Totenberg Roman Totenberg (January 1, 1911 – May 8, 2012) was a Polish-American violinist and educator. A child prodigy, he lived in Poland, Moscow, Berlin, and Paris, before formally immigrating to the U.S. in 1938, at age 27. He performed and taught ...

, Toshiya Eto, and

Armand Weisbord Armand refer to: People * Armand (name), list of people with this name *Armand (photographer) (1901–1963), Armenian photographer *Armand (singer) (1946–2015), Dutch protest singer *Sean Armand (born 1991), American basketball player *Armand, ...

. She also studied composition with

Mario Davidovsky Mario Davidovsky (March 4, 1934 – August 23, 2019) was an Argentine-American composer. Born in Argentina, he emigrated in 1960 to the United States, where he lived for the remainder of his life. He is best known for his series of compositions ca ...

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

, and computer music at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

. Kimura holds a doctorate in performance from

The Juilliard School The Juilliard School ( ) is a Private university, private performing arts music school, conservatory in New York City. Founded by Frank Damrosch as the Institute of Musical Art in 1905, the school later added dance and drama programs and became ...

. Since September 1998, she has been teaching a graduate class in Interactive Computer Music Performance at The Juilliard School. Mari Kimura is the daughter of a renowned Japanese environmental architect, Ken-ichi Kimura. She grew up in a solar house designed by her father in Japan.

Compositions

Kimura has been composing for violin solo and violin with various media since 1991. Her works for solo violin (without computer) showcase subharmonics: ALT (three movements), 1992, Gemini, 1993, Six Caprices for Subharmonics, 1997, Subharmonic Partita, 2004. Kimura's compositions for violin and interactive computer make use of the

Max/MSP Max, also known as Max/MSP/Jitter, is a visual programming language for music and multimedia developed and maintained by San Francisco-based software company Cycling '74. Over its more than thirty-year history, it has been used by composers, pe ...

software. Recently, she has been developing with and took part in introducing "Max for Live", which integrates Max patches with

Ableton Live Ableton Live is a digital audio workstation for macOS and Windows developed by the German company Ableton. In contrast to many other software sequencers, Live is designed to be an instrument for live performances as well as a tool for compos ...

, at the AES (Audio Engineering Society) Meeting on October 9, 2009. She has premiered works by composers

Jean-Claude Risset Jean-Claude Raoul Olivier Risset (; 13 March 1938 – 21 November 2016) was a French composer, best known for his pioneering contributions to computer music. He was a former student of André Jolivet and former co-worker of Max Mathews at Bell L ...

Toshi Ichiyanagi was a Japanese avant-garde composer and pianist. One of the leading composers in Japan during the postwar era, Ichiyanagi worked in a range of genres, composing Western-style operas and orchestral and chamber works, as well as compositions usi ...

, Frances White,

Tania León Tania León (born May 14, 1943) is a Cuban-born American composer of both large-scale and chamber works. She is also renowned as a conductor, educator, and advisor to arts organizations. Early years and education She was born Tania Justina Leó ...

, Robert Rowe, and

Yoshihiro Kanno Yoshihiro is a Japanese masculine given name, and less commonly, a surname. There are dozens of different ways to write the name in kanji. Some examples of written forms *義弘, "justice, vast" *義広, "justice, wide" *義寛, "justice, gener ...

. She has performed with a range of avant-garde performers such as Robert Dick,

Elliott Sharp Elliott Sharp (born March 1, 1951) is an American contemporary classical music, contemporary classical composer, multi-instrumentalist, performer, author, and visual artist. A central figure in the Avant-garde music, avant-garde and experimenta ...

, and

Henry Kaiser Henry John Kaiser (May 9, 1882 – August 24, 1967) was an American industrialist who became known for his shipbuilding and construction projects, then later for his involvement in fostering modern American health care. Prior to World War II, ...

Awards

In Japan, Kimura was awarded the Kenzo Nakajima Music Prize in 1995. Her commissions include PluckLand for Shamisen and Violin with interactive computer (for Music From Japan Festival 2009), InterAct Sweet for orchestra (for Chautauqua Regional Youth Symphony 2008), GuitarBotana commissioned by

Harvestworks Harvestworks is a not-for-profit arts organization located in New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's ...

, Violin Concerto for violin and interactive computer system with orchestra (for Orqesta Sinfonica de Guanajuato, Mexico), Kivika for dance (for AmDAT dance), Arboleda for viola and electronics (for violist Liuh Wen Ting), Bucknerian for voice and electronics (for baritone Thomas Buckner) and Descarga Interactive for violin and electronics (2000 ICMC Commission Award). She was selected as a 2010 Composer in Residence in musical research at IRCAM in Paris, as one of the two winners among 117 applicants. She worked on her ongoing collaboration with the Real Time Musical Interactions Team at

IRCAM IRCAM (French: ''Ircam, '', English: Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music) is a French institute dedicated to the research of music and sound, especially in the fields of Avant-garde music, avant garde and Electroacoustic ...

on bowing gesture follower, the "Augmented Violin System". Kimura was awarded the 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship in Music Composition. Her composition "I-Quadrifoglio" for the Cassatt String Quartet, from a 2010 Commission Award from the Fromm Foundation, was premiered at Symphony Space in NYC on October 13, 2011.

Performances

Kimura has been invited as an artist in residence at

Banff Center for the Arts Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity (formerly Banff Centre) is an arts and culture educational institution in Banff, Alberta. It offers arts programs in the performing and fine arts, as well as leadership training. It was established in 193 ...

, Headland Center for the Arts, Harvestworks, among others. A winner of 2006 Artist Fellowship from New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), her works have been supported by grants including Jerome Foundation, Arts International, Meet The Composer, Japan Foundation,

Argosy Foundation The Argosy Foundation, founded in 1997, is currently based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was formerly known as the Abele Family Charitable Trust. History The foundation was established in 1995 with a $9 million endowment from John Abele. In 2002, i ...

, and the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA). Her international appearances include the Agora Festival at IRCAM in Paris; Spring in Budapest, Hungary; ISCM World Music Days in Hong Kong; Internacíonal Festival Cervantino in Mexico; International Bartók Festival in Hungary; St. Christopher festival in Lithuania, Asian Contemporary Music Festival in Korea. Her radio and TV appearances include CNN's Headline News, NY1 News, NHK radio in Japan, Radio France, WNYC-FM's “Around New York”, among others.

Discography

References

External links

*
New York Times feature article by Matthew Gurewitsch, May 15, 2011

/ Scientific American feature article by Larry Greenemeier, May 30, 2011

NY1 News interview/segment aired on May 23, 2011

By Suzanne Thorpe. March 4, 2009. Ars Electric.

faculty portrait.
Mari Kimura on Subharmonics: The violinist continues to explore the world below G
By James Reel. Strings Magazine.

Appeared in 20th-Century Music in January, 1999.
Violinist.com receives instruction from Kimura on how to play subharmonics
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kimura, Mari 1962 births 20th-century Japanese classical composers 20th-century Japanese classical violinists 20th-century Japanese women composers 21st-century Japanese classical composers 21st-century Japanese classical violinists 21st-century Japanese women composers Columbia University alumni Japanese women classical composers Japanese women classical violinists Japanese women in electronic music Living people Women in classical music