Yumi Hara

Yumi Hara is a Japanese performer (piano, keys, vo, harp) based in London. As a composer, she has written pieces for Contemporary classical ensembles such as the BBC Singers, PianoCircus, Ensemble Bash and Smith Quartet, and was a finalist for British Composer Awards 2006, but became increasingly known as an improvisor/performer in avant/experimental rock/Canterbury/RIO for her percussive piano and floating vocals since she released a CD album ‘Dune’ with Hugh Hopper (ex-Soft Machine) in 2008. She has performed with Alfred Harth, Tim Hodgkinson, Fred Frith, Mani Neumeier, Jean-Hervé Péron, Zappi W. Diermaier, David Cross, David Jackson, Charles Hayward, Tatsuya Yoshida, Yoshihide Otomo, HACO, Akira Sakata, Kazutoki Umezu, and many more and released albums include: Geoff Leigh & Yumi Hara ‘Upstream’, Yumi Hara featuring Tatsuya Yoshida ‘Statement Heels’, you me & us (Daevid Allen, Chris Cutler, Yumi Hara) ‘Poesy at Play’, The Artaud Beats (with Geoff Leigh, Chris Cutler, John Greaves) ‘Logos’, and Jump for Joy! (with Jean-Herve Peron, Zappi, Chris Cutler, Geoff Leigh, Geraldine Swayne) ‘Bat Pullover’. She founded Half the Sky:Music of Lindsay Cooper (with Chris Cutler, Mitsuru Nasuno, Miwazow, Wataru Okuma, Chloe Herington, Dagmar Krause) in 2015. She is senior lecturer in music at University of East London. She founded and runs Bonobo’s Ark label.