Kimi Kawashima, Artistic Director

Dr. Kawashima is a well-known pianist who brings brilliant and thoughtful performances to NOVA’s stage and the Salt Lake City community. She has in-depth knowledge of chamber music repertoire and is highly connected to the national music scene.

She has been a champion of new music performance for over two decades in Salt Lake City. As a pianist and chamber musician, she has commissioned and recently performed works by composers Xavier Muzik, Kennedy Taylor Dixon, Anthony R. Green, Wang Lu, Thomas Osborne, Karen Tanaka, and Andrew Norman, among others. She has curated programs that place composers into dialogue with one another, such as John Cage with Alessandro Scarlatti; Caroline Shaw with Antonio Vivaldi; Steve Reich with Pérotin; and Andrew Yee with Barbara Strozzi.

As the director of music at Westminster University, Dr. Kawashima teaches piano and seminars in the Honors College. She leads departmental initiatives that support faculty and student-centered learning, while also bringing in nationally and internationally recognized classical, jazz, and world music guests to perform for the Westminster Concert Series. An avid chamber musician, Dr. Kawashima has curated and performed in critically acclaimed programs featured on KUHF’s Front Row radio program, Houston’s Zilkha Hall, Rothko Chapel and served as performer and curator for the Aperio Chamber Music Series where she organized the concert Intersections: A Musical Perspective of Cy Twombly at the Menil Collection, performing John Cage’s seminal Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano. Dr. Kawashima recently performed as concerto soloist with the Yakima, Longview and Lubbock Symphony Orchestras; she has performed for the last 10 years at the Grand Teton Music Festival (Jackson Hole, WY) in both orchestral and chamber music concerts, performing with members of the Philadelphia, Minnesota, and Dallas Orchestras, among others.