Yumi Kurosawa returns to the Lane Series with her dramatic and fascinating instrument, the Koto, a Japanese plucked zither with thirteen or twenty strings. A prodigy from a young age, the award-winning Kurosawa was raised in a traditional Japanese musical environment, taking up the instrument at the age of three. As a teenager, she also surrounded herself with contemporary music by Western composers, later integrating their melodies and phrasings into her own solo performances.

For our concert, Yumi will be joined by two extraordinary musicians. Violinist Naho Parrini performs regularly with New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic, South Country Concert Series, Mirror Visions Ensemble, and Performance Santa Fe and is on the faculty of Vermont’s own Kinhaven Music School. Percussionist and composer Yousif Sheronick is known for his work with the Silk Road Ensemble, Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass, Yo-Yo Ma, Branford Marsalis and many others. Their program for the evening features exhilarating new compositions from Yumi and striking reinterpretations of favorites from her oeuvre, highlighting the affinity between the seemingly disparate voices of Koto, violin, and hand percussion. This will be a beautiful, unusual, and mind-expanding performance.