Mari Kimura & Tomoyuki Kato's ONE Set for River to River Festival, 6/30

ONE is a cutting-edge, audio-visual, multi-lingual opera, with the themes of "love, humanity, faith and global solidarity" premiering on Sunday, June 30th at the Michael SchimMel Center for the Arts.

Hailed as a "revolutionary" (The New York Times), violinist/composer Mari Kimura, teams up with award-winning Japanese movie director Tomoyuki Kato, to create this large-scale composition for ensemble and herself on stage. Ms. Kimura will use a state-of-the-art motion sensor technology called "Augmented Violin" developed at IRCAM in Paris. The musicians' sounds and the "Augmented Violin" system interact in real-time with the sophisticated real-time computer graphics created by Mr. Kato on stage. Together with Tokyo-based Mr. Kato who creates large-scale theme park projects, expo presentations and commercials in Asia, they will create a stunning audio/visual interactive project featuring the Cassatt String Quartet and vocalist Kyoko Kitamura. Ms. Kitamura will wear the second motion sensor to interact with the rich audio and video elements. This event is part of Harvestworks 2013 New York Electronic Art Festival, in partnership with the River To River Festival.

The world is hanging by the balance in many ways more than ever; economically, environmentally, politically and spiritually. It is crucial we remind ourselves, and we must not forget that we are ONE; we are all one race of humankind. ONE, or "all our space (or place)" is a global plea for us to love one another, prepare a better world for our children and the future. ONE also celebrates our achievements of the modern world; the project uses the most innovative interactive audio/visual technology, integrating multiple elements of the arts: classical acoustic instruments, motion sensors, interactive graphics, and high-tech interactive clothing and fashion.

ONE was commissioned by Harvestworks with support from New Music USA's Commissioning Music/USA program, which is made possible by generous annual support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs as well as endowment support from The Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, The Helen F. Whitaker Fund, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trust.

ONE will be presented on Sunday, June 30, 2013 7:30pm in the Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts, 3 Spruce Street, New York. Subway/Buses: 2/3 to Park Place/Broadway; R/W to City Hall; J/M/Z to Fulton Street; 4/5/6 to Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall; M1; M6; M9; M15; M22; M103; B51. Admission: FREE!

Mari Kimura, Composer/Violinist: Mari Kimura is at the forefront of violinists who are extending the technical and expressive capabilities of the instrument. As a performer, composer, and researcher, she has opened up new sonic worlds for the violin. Notably, she has mastered the production of pitches that sound up to an octave below the violin's lowest string without retuning. This technique, which she calls Subharmonics, has earned Mari considerable renown in the concert music world and beyond. She is also a pioneer in the field of interactive computer music. At the same time, she has earned international acclaim as a soloist and recitalist in both standard and contemporary repertoire.

As a composer, Mari's commissions include the International Computer Music Association, Harvestworks, Music from Japan and others, supported by grants including New York Foundation for the Arts, Arts International, Meet The Composer, Japan Foundation, Argosy Foundation, and New York State Council on the Arts. In 2010 Mari won the Guggenheim Fellowship in Composition, and was invited as Composer-in- Residence at IRCAM in Paris. In May 2011, Mari was presented in a solo recital at the Bohemian National Hall in NYC by the Vilcek Foundation, in recognition of her ground-breaking work as a foreign-born artist; subsequently she was named one of 2011's 45 individuals as "Immigrants: Pride of America" by the Carnegie Corporation, published in The New York Times. Mari's latest CD, The World Below G and Beyond, is devoted entirely to her own compositions and focuses on works using Subharmonics and interactive computer music. In October 2011, Mari presented her "I-Quadrifoglo", her first string quartet with interactive computer at New York's Symphony Space, commissioned by the Cassatt String Quartet through a 2010 Fromm Foundation Commission Award from Harvard University.

In 1994, Mari presented Subharmonics technique for the first time in public, at the League of Composers/ ISCM Recital Award concert at New York's Merkin Hall. Mari's 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 Mari. Mari's work has been featured in major publications including The New York Times written by Matthew Gurewitsch, and in Scientific American written by Larry Greenemeier.

As a violinist, Mari 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, Mari 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. In November 2010, Mari appeared as a soloist with the Hamburg Symphony performing John Adams' Dharma at the Big Sur, under the direction of Jonathan Stockhammer, conductor.

In 2013, Mari is inaugurating a new summer program as a Director of "Future Music Lab" at the Atlantic Music Festival in collaboration with IRCAM. The program focuses on nurturing high-level performers using the latest technology as a creative tool. Since 1998, Mari has been teaching a graduate course in Interactive Computer Music Performance at Juilliard. www.marikimura.com www.atlanticmusicfestival.org/the-institute/programs/future-music-lab

Tomoyuki Kato, Visual Artist/Movie Director: Tomoyuki Kato is a renowned Japanese visual artist/movie director who works in a wide range of high-tech projects including advertisements, commercials, museums exhibitions and theme-parks. Mr. Kato's work is known for the superb quality, high impact, originality and new technical methods. Mr. Kato has been active in creating corporate future vision, such as "concept car," incorporating live action, computer graphics and animation and interactive video. Mr. Kato, who is a visual director of Dentsu Tec, the largest high-tech PR firm of Japan, has received and has been nominated for numerous awards at international and national festivals, including Japan Ministry of Culture Media Arts Festival, Los Angels International Short Film Festival, Montreal International Film Festival and London International Advertising Festival. Mr. Kato's creative team includes Yoshito Onishi, Image Programing, and Chisako Hasegawa, Visual Producer.

Kyoko Kitamura, Vocalist/Composer: Kyoko Kitamura is a vocal improviser and composer residing in Brooklyn. She does weird things with her voice and is often a side-person for various amazing musicians. Her own songs have mildly disturbing content which may stem from her experience as a one-time war reporter. Most recently, she can be heard on Anthony Braxton's first-ever studio-recorded opera Trillium E and his Syntactical Ghost Trance Choir as well as on her solo release "Armadillo In Sunset Park." www.kyokokitamura.com

Cassatt String Quartet: Acclaimed as one of America's outstanding ensembles, the Manhattan based Cassatt String Quartet is equally adept at classical masterpieces and contemporary music. Established in 1985, the Cassatt has performed throughout North America, Europe, and the Far East, with appearances at New York's Alice Tully Hall and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Tanglewood Music Theater, the Kennedy Center and the Library of Congress, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris and Maeda Hall in Tokyo. Named three times by The New Yorker magazine's Best Of The Year CD Selection, the Cassatt String Quartet can be found on YouTube. www.cassattquartet.com

Photo Credit: Noah Fowler

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