Kenji Fujimura
*3 May 1975
Works by Kenji Fujimura
Biography
Dr Kenji Fujimura is a multi-award-winning composer. His works have been recently performed in USA, Romania, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia. Recent prizes include the Singapore Asian Composers Festival award, William Lincer Foundation Award (USA), and the VirtualArtists International Composition Award (USA). His compositions were also shortlisted for the 2019 Reno Pops Orchestra Composition Prize (USA) and a finalist for the 3rd Cum Laude International Music Composition Prize (Spain). The 2022-2024 seasons saw the premiere of various commissioned works, including Three Mini Concert Etudes for piano solo (score now available), The Ballan Suite - trio for cello, bassoon, and piano (score in preparation), and Piano Trio No.2 (score in preparation). 2025 premieres include a new commission for flute, bassoon, cello, and piano.
As a pianist his accolades have included Limelight Magazine Chamber Music Recording of the Year and a Musicweb International Recording of the Year accolade, as well as various competition successes. He continues his advocacy of unduly neglected music, with performance and recording projects of composers such as William Hurlstone, Harry Waldo Warner, Rosalind Ellicott, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor et alia to his credit. Current projects include recordings of works by Arthur Benjamin, various English, Australian, and French piano music, as well as the The Reissiger Project - the world-first recording of all 27 piano trios.
Kenji is also a highly respected pedagogue and administrator, with over thirty years of tertiary teaching, supervision, research, and administration experience. Retiring from his role as Deputy Head of School and Associate Professor at Monash University, and full-time academia, in December 2018, he now shares his time between various positions. Current roles include Executive Director of IAMUSICA (www.iamusica.org), Founding Member of Trio Anima Mundi (www.trioanimamundi.com), and Associate Lecturer at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music. He is Artistic Director and Chair of the jury of the Melbourne International Piano and Strings Festival and Competition, and Patron of Association of Eisteddfod Societies of Australia (www.eisteddfod.org.au).
In 2015 Kenji was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music, London, for his 'significant contribution to the music profession'.
www.kenjimusic.com
About the music
Kenji has explored and researched an extensive range of compositional styles and idioms from traditional Western music notation to visual and graphic scores, aleatoric music to world music styles. Self-taught, his early works, which included a string quartet, viola sonata, and flute concertino, were first publicly performed whilst a junior high school student. His recent works have a neo-romantic element, tinged with his interest in historical repertoire and world music.
