Pianist KANAE MATSUMOTO is active as a soloist and chamber musician. She has been invited to give solo recitals in such music festivals as the Third International Conservatoire Week (St. Petersburg, Russia), the Aichi World Expo (Nagoya, Japan), and many concert series in the Southern California area, including Epiphany Music Guild, Hi-Desert Concert Series, and Classical Encounters. Highlights of her collaborative activities in recent years include a performance of Beethoven’s complete Violin Sonatas in Toronto and at the Chautauqua Music Festival in New York with the distinguished violinist Jacques Israelievitch. Her performance was described as “unfailingly crisp, warm, and sensitive throughout the fiendishly difficult piano parts…” (showtimemagazine.ca). The Israelievitch-Matsumoto Duo has recently recorded violin sonatas by Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc, and Pierné for the Fleur de Son label.

Born in Japan, Matsumoto started her music education at the age of 5. As a teenager, she won several nationally regarded piano competitions. After completing a master’s degree in piano performance at Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music with a Distinction Honor, she moved to the United States to continue her piano studies with world-renowned Russian pianist and pedagogue Vitaly Margulis. Under his guidance, she earned master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles. During her study at UCLA, she received numerous scholarships and awards. She is currently teaching piano performance and collaborative piano at the Herb Alpert School of Music at UCLA. During the summer she serves as a faculty collaborative pianist at the Chautauqua Institution Music Festival in New York.