is a Japanese violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

ist and composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 best known for her use of subharmonic

Subharmonic

Subharmonic frequencies are frequencies below the fundamental frequency of an oscillator in a ratio of 1/n, with n a positive integer number. For example, if the fundamental frequency of an oscillator is 440 Hz, sub-harmonics include 220 Hz and 110 Hz...

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

Octave

In music, an octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems"...

 below the low G on the violin without adjusting the tuning of the instrument.

She studied violin with Joseph Fuchs

Joseph Fuchs

Joseph Fuchs was one of the most important American violinists and teachers of the 20th century, and the brother of Lillian Fuchs....

, Roman Totenberg

Roman Totenberg

Roman Totenberg is a Polish-American violinist and educator.He is the father of National Public Radio journalist Nina Totenberg...

, Toshiya Eto, and Armand Weisbord. She also studied composition with Mario Davidovsky

Mario Davidovsky

Mario Davidovsky is an Argentine-American composer. Born in Argentina, he emigrated in 1960 to the US, where he lives today...

 at Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

, and computer music at Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

. Kimura holds a doctorate in performance from The Juilliard School. Since September 1998, she has been teaching a graduate class in Interactive Computer Music Performance at The Juilliard School.

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

Ableton Live

Ableton Live is a loop-based software music sequencer and DAW for Mac OS and Windows by Ableton. The latest major release of Live, Version 8, was released in April 2009. In contrast to many other software sequencers, Live is designed to be an instrument for live performances as well as a tool for...

, at the AES (Audio Engineering Society) Meeting on October 9, 2009.

She has premiered works by composers Jean-Claude Risset

Jean-Claude Risset

Jean-Claude Risset is a French composer, best known for his pioneering contributions to computer music. He is a former student of André Jolivet and former co-worker of Max Mathews at Bell Labs....

, Toshi Ichiyanagi

Toshi Ichiyanagi

is a Japanese composer of avant-garde music. He studied with Tomojiro Ikenouchi and John Cage.One of his most notable works is the 1960 composition, Kaiki, which combined Japanese instruments, shō and koto, and western instruments, harmonica and saxophone. Another work Distance requires the...

, Frances White

Frances White

Frances White is a British actress, perhaps best known for her roles as Kate Hamilton in Crossroads and as Miss Flood in the BBC sitcom May to December....

, Tania León

Tania Leon

Tania León is a Cuban composer and conductor who has been recognized as an educator and advisor to arts organizations.-León's Music:...

, Robert Rowe

Robert Rowe

Robert C. Rowe is a former Republican member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.-References:...

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

Robert Dick

Robert Dick , Scottish geologist and botanist was born at Tullibody, in Clackmannanshire.His father was an officer of excise. At the age of thirteen, after receiving a good elementary education at the parish school, Dick was apprenticed to a baker, and served for three years...

, Elliott Sharp

Elliott Sharp

Elliott Sharp is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, and performer.A central figure in the avant-garde and experimental music scene in New York City since the late 1970s, Sharp has released over eighty-five recordings ranging from blues, jazz, and orchestral music to noise, no wave rock,...

, and Henry Kaiser

Henry Kaiser

Henry Kaiser may refer to:People*Henry Felix Kaiser , American academic known for the varimax rotation*Henry J. Kaiser , American industrialist and shipbuilder who founded Kaiser Permanente...

.

Awards

In Japan, Kimura was awarded the Kenzo Nakajima Music Prize in 1995, in recognition of her creative activities in the country. 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, 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

IRCAM is a European institute for science about music and sound and avant garde electro-acoustical art music. It is situated next to, and is organizationally linked with, the Centre Pompidou in Paris...

 on bowing gesture follower, the “Augmented Violin System”. Kimura was awarded 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship in Music Composition. Currently she is working on her latest work "I-Quadrifoglio" for the Cassatt String Quartet, with a 2010 Commission Award from the Fromm Foundation.

Performances

Kimura has been invited as an artist in residence at Banff Center for the Arts, 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, 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.

Albums

Year	Album
2010	The World Below G and Beyond
2007	Polytopia
2005	The World Below G (self-release, withdrawn for 2010 compilation)
1999	Leyendas
1996	Irrefragable Dreams
1993	Acoustics

External links

• Official website
• 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
• Mari Kimura, Tradition/E-Novation. By Suzanne Thorpe. March 4, 2009. Ars Electric.
• Mari Kimura: faculty portrait.
• Mari Kimura on Subharmonics: The violinist continues to explore the world below G. By James Reel. Strings Magazine.
• Mari Kimura, interview by David Bündler. Appeared in 20th-Century Music in January, 1999.
• Violinist.com receives instruction from Kimura on how to play subharmonics