Eri Isomura
Summer Marimba Recital
Twin Cities Percussionist Eri Isomura presents a collection of solo and duo pieces featuring modern marimba and percussion works. Percussionist Richardson Handjaja will be featured on the Korean traditional Janggu drum in the world premiere of Chilchae for Janggu and Marimba by Michael Maiorana. Eri will also present her first composition featuring marimba and electronics, and selections from her new solo percussion album, 12 Months in Minnesota, composed and produced by Asuka Kakitani.
This activity is made possible by the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council and the Minnesota Legislature. 
Eri Isomura is a freelance performer and instructor of piano, percussion, and marimba from St. Paul, Minnesota. She frequently performs in orchestras, recitals, choirs, musicals, and recording projects around the Twin Cities. In 2021 she released the album "Musical Moments for Cello and Marimba" with her father Sachiya Isomura, a former cellist in the Minnesota Orchestra. Eri is a founding member of 10th Wave Chamber Collective, a Twin Cities-based ensemble featuring classical music of the 20th and 21st centuries, which is serving as MPR Class Notes Artists for 21-22. She is also an Ensemble Artist of the Heartland Marimba Ensemble. She has recently performed in a variety of musical styles with the Minnesota Opera, Champagne Confetti, Zeitgeist, Border CrosSing, Dubuque Symphony, and others.
While studying at the Boston Conservatory, she was a member of the New England Philharmonic and performed with the Brookline Symphony Orchestra. She performed for the "Times Two Series," a new music initiative based in Boston. She performed in John Luther Adams' piece Inuksuit, a percussion piece written for the outdoors at the Tippett Rise Music Festival, Bravo! Vail Music Festival, and Aspen Music Festival. She has commissioned and/or premiered works for marimba by local composers such as Asako Hirabayashi, Michael Maiorana, Ian A Cook, Elwyn A Fraser Jr., Jonathan Posthuma, and others. As an educator, Eri is on the percussion faculty at St. Olaf College, is a percussion class teacher at Yinghua Academy and a board member of the Percussive Arts Society Minnesota Chapter. As a piano instructor she is a member of the Minnesota Music Teachers Association as well as the Minneapolis Music Teachers Forum. She has been a guest panelist for the Minnesota Orchestra Pre-Concert Talk and St. Olaf Arts Entrepreneurship, as well as a guest on music podcasts. Isomura’s diverse musical background began with classical piano with Jean Krinke and percussion with Robert Adney. She continued her percussion and marimba studies with David Hagedorn, and drumset with Phil Hey at St. Olaf College, where she received her B.M. in Percussion Performance with Distinction in 2011. She was a featured performer for the St. Olaf Orchestra Senior Soloists Concert (2011), Masterworks Festival Honors Recital (2010), and the MacPhail Center of Arts Concerto and Aria Competition (2007). She completed her M.M. in Percussion Performance at The Boston Conservatory under the tutelage of Keith Aleo, Doug Perkins, Samuel Z Solomon, and Nancy Zeltsman. |
