Born and raised in Tohoku area in Japan and having lived in Tokyo and Vancouver, Canada as well, Kozue Matsumoto now lives in the Los Angels area in California. She has played koto since she was three years old under Ikuta-ryu Miyagi-kai and holds a semi-master title. She has also played shamisen and shinobue since she was small.
Kozue matsumoto has studied improvisation, composition, and technology under Susan Allen, Vinny Golia, and Eyvind Kang, and Ajay Kapur, and graduated with her M.F.A. in Performer-Composer at California Institute of the Arts.
Other than performances and inter-disciplinary collaborations with various artists, Matsumoto has a strong interests in exploring the potential of Japanese traditional music and performing arts beyond their conventional contexts. She is currently working on integrating the koto sounds and computer technology to expand the range of koto sounds.
Matsumoto also invites the first class musicians from Japan to North America and organizes and implements international/inter-disciplinary collaborative projects with local art groups and other communities.
Known for her performances of compositions in the contemporary repertoire, especially those for flute and electronics, Rachel Rudich has also received recognition for her intermedia performances as flutist and dancer. Her awards include First Prize in the Kreauter Musical Foundation Award for Outstanding Achievement in Chamber Music, the Artists International Award which led to her New York debut at Carnegie Recital Hall, and appointment to the roster of Affiliate Artists.
Rudich has received recording grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Alice M. Ditson Fund, and the Aaron Copland Fund for Music. She can be heard on Albany, Bridge, Centaur, Composers Recordings Inc., Electronic Music Foundation, Koch International Classics, Mode, Music and Arts Programs of America, Musicmasters, Neuma, Newport Classic, New World, Opus One, Perspectives of New Music, and Sony Classical.
Miss Rudich received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Goddard College and her Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in flute performance from the Manhattan School of Music, where she studied with Thomas Nyfenger and Harvey Sollberger. She is currently a faculty member at Pomona College, and Professor of Flute at California Institute of the Arts.
As a student of the shakuhachi, the Japanese bamboo flute, Rachel Rudich has worked with Masakazu Yoshizawa (Los Angeles), Bill Shozan Schultz (Los Angeles), Kaoru Kakizakai (Tokyo), Christopher Yohmei Blasdel (Tokyo), Yodo Kurahashi (Kyoto), and Riley Lee (Australia). She attended and performed at the World Shakuhachi Festivals in Sydney, Australia in 2008, and in Kyoto, Japan in 2012, as well as the Rockies Shakuhachi Camp in Boulder, Colorado in 2009 through 2012, and 2017. After a performance at REDCAT, at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times said, "the extended contributions by Rachel Rudich on shakuhachi were at once inventive and atmospheric." She teaches shakuhachi workshops and private students, and as part of her 2012 sabbatical from CalArts, she spent two months in Japan for extensive study of and performances on the shakuhachi.