Izumi Kimura was born in Yokohama, Japan and studied piano performance and chamber music at Toho Gakuen University of Music with Akikio Teranishi, Akira Miyoshi and Kazuoki Fujii. She moved to Ireland in 1995 and studied with Ray Keary at RIAM and was a multiple prizewinner at the Feis Ceoil in 1996 and 1997.
Izumi has performed extensively throughout Ireland as a solo, orchestral and chamber musician. She has broadcast on RTE FM, performed with the RTE National Symphony Orchestra and the National Concert Orchestra.
Izumi is a specialist in the performance of contemporary music and her premiere performances include Etude No.5 by Kevin O'Connell, Artists in Residence by Ronan Guilfoyle which was written for her and jazz saxophonist Julian Arguelles. Also by Ronan, Sonata for Violin and Piano which she premiered this spring with Ioana Petcu-Colan. Firefly Catching, the piece based on Japanese folk tune was written for her by Greg Caffrey, which She gave premiere in Northern Ireland. She was a featured performer at the Living Music Festival 2007 in Dublin where she performed the music of John Adams, and also the world premiere of Suite for Piano Quartet and Improvising Soloist by the American Trombonist Ed Neumeister. She has worked with Crash Emsenble which She gave Irish premiere of Resist/Surrender by Scot Johnson at the Dublin International Dance Festival. Izumi is working on the project of introducing Japanese contemporary music to Ireland. In July 2007 she gave a solo concert of Irish and Japanese contemporary music at the Ghent Street Festival in Belgium.
'heroic levels of technical fearlessness, stamina and strengh in a programme dominated by flying, rumbling bass lines, hard-driven rhythms and counter-rhythms, and thousands upon thousands of notes - she also created a breathing, slow-burn climax - with a more reflective, often intimate style of playing'. Irish Times.
