Yuko Inoue Biography

She was born in Nagoya in Aichi Prefecture and brought up in Kakamigahara City, Gifu Prefecture, Japan.
She began to play the Marimba and the Piano in her early childhood. She also enjoyed playing the Trumpet and Percussion instruments in the brass band at Naka Junior High school in Kakamigahara and Gifu High school in Gifu.

She has a Bachelor's Degree in music from the Toho Gakuen College of Music in Tokyo. She studied with a most famous Marimba player in the world, Keiko Abe, master Marimba teacher at Toho.
Later, in 1997, she studied the Marimba and the Percussion Performance at the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music with Zoltan Racz in Budapest, Hungary.

In Japan, she also won several solo competitions for brass and percussion instruments.
Also, she was invited to play the Marimba at the 25th Anniversary of the Gifu Prefecture Brass Union. As she continued her professional career playing in different cities, she had the privilege to play the Marimba at the following events:

The 2nd rising players concert as the 13th Gifu cultural festival.

The 108th New Figures Concert in Nagoya by the Japan Federation of Musicians, supported by Sony Music Foundation, sponsored by the JFM, The Chunichi Newspaper Company and The Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra. She has played the Marimba Concerto as a soloist with the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Taizo Takemoto in 2002.

Japan offers many opportunities for Marimba players to play all over the country. Equally important, the Toho Gakuen College of Music has invited her, in numerous occasions, to play the Marimba in their yearly held event called the New Figures Concert in Gifu Prefecture. In recent years, she has been blessed to be able to play the Marimba at the Yomiuri Chubu New Figures Concert in Nagoya, Japan. Excitingly enough, while she was studying at the Ferenc Liszt Academy in Budapest in 1998, she got to play the Marimba, as a guest player with the internationally well known percussion group from Hungary, Amadinda.

Most recently, she won IBLA Grand Prize Competition in 2009 (Ragusa-Ibla Sicily, Italy), as a Most Distinguished Musician, Honorary Award - Marimba Special Mention Winner. She performed at IBLA?Grand Prize Winners Concert at?Radford?University in Virginia.

It is important for her to mention, that she has opened her career even further by appearing playing the Marimba on national television NHK Japan. Her first original solo Marimba music "In The Dark" got airplay on ZIP-FM which is very popular radio station in Japan.

As far as recording is concern, she has recorded a CD with Ms. Ae-roung Jang, in Seoul, South Korea, who is also a very professional Marimba player.

Many years ago, she always dreamed mixing the Marimba sounds with other great instruments. Therefore, as a Marimba player, she enjoyed playing together with other musicians such as saxophone players, pianists and also violinists. And she went one step further by playing the Marimba for soprano singers and chorus groups. In 2013, She formed an ensemble?called?"Jeu-ne"?(It?means wooden sound in Japanese). All the concerts in Japan were sold out.

When she was in Japan, right before she moved to America, she had been lecturing many music students about the beautiful sound that the Marimba makes. On the other hand, she also had been busy teaching other students how to play the Piano in Kakamigahara City, Gifu Prefecture.

Currently, she lives in Los Angeles, California, in addition to playing concerts, she also arranges and composes music for the Marimba.

For more information, please contact by e-mailing through this website.

?2003-23 Yuko Inoue All Rights Reserved