When, where and what did you play the first time with the English Concert?
Handel’s Solomon at the BBC Proms in August 2022
What has been your most memorable English Concert performance and why?
It was a Brandenburgs concert in Bath Abbey and Wigmore which struck me unexpectedly emotionally due to the delight of experiencing the first such large audience I’d been in front of since lockdowns, and the fact that I was playing such fun concerts around my birthday.
What’s one of your favourite pieces of music and why?
The Bach obbligato violin and harpsichord sonatas are really close to my heart. I’ve spent countless joyous hours delving into them and allowing my imagination to let loose- it’s an incredible playground of counterpoint, harmony, and dialogue. Also, the music composed by my friend Doug Balliett is in my bones from the many many weeks of playing new cantatas written by him for services at St. Mary’s Church in NYC’s Lower East Side, as well as countless other projects together.
Is there anything about you that would surprise people?
I guess it depends on who I’m trying to surprise. But most people probably don’t know that I used to do parkour when I was a teenager! I loved it so much. Now I mostly get my kicks from cycling and hiking, but I’ll never get over my love of climbing up things. I like heights and the peace you can find there.
Biography
New York–born Manami Mizumoto started her lifelong relationship with music at age 3 on the violin. Early exposure to chamber music sparked in her a devoted love of collaboration. This led to a dual fascination with working with living composers and bringing back to life lesser-known works of the past.
In recent years, this has manifested in being a founding member of the group Nuova Pratica, a collective of composer-performers working with centuries-old practices of improvisation in the modern day.
Manami is also a founding member of Harmonia Stellarum Houston, which focuses on presenting newly discovered vocal-instrumental works of 17th and 18th centuries in scholarly informed performances. In addition, Manami is passionate about exploring different approaches to music making in history and how that can transform the way modern audiences relate to music of the past.
Her driving curiosity is in exploring the dialogue between ancient and contemporary thoughts, and she is equally at home on the baroque violin, modern violin, and electro-acoustic setups with Ableton Live.
Manami is a graduate of the Juilliard School where she earned a Bachelor’s with Catherine Cho and Joel Smirnoff, a Masters in Historical Performance, and graduated with the Norman Benzaquen Career Advancement Grant. In 2022, she was selected a member of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and plays as concertmaster with them as well as many groups across the US.
