Blind Date Jazz: Izumi Kimura + Lina Andonovska

IMC’s Blind Date Jazz - A New Limited Series

Episode 2

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Musicians often describe improvising with each other as having a conversation - listening, throwing out ideas, responding and developing on each other’s musical thoughts, all in real time.
Since the start of the pandemic we’ve all had less opportunity to listen and hear - feeling either isolated from other people, or besieged by a tsunami of digital content, impossible to focus and listen.

IMC’s new limited series Blind Date Jazz brings listening and creative improvisation into focus, with some of Ireland’s leading improvisers coming into the studio to create an exciting, new, musical conversation.

The twist?

Neither musician has any idea who they are playing with. Unknown, unrehearsed, unplanned and unseen. Not even aware what the other instrument is. In other words, completely blind.

For our second episode, we paired up flautist Lina Andonovska with pianist Izumi Kimura on their musical blind date.

Japanese-born, Irish-based pianist Izumi Kimura has worked with many of the top names in contemporary and improvised music and performed all over the world, and is praised by the Irish Times for her “heroic level of technical fearlessness”. Get a taster of her upcoming album with Cora Venus Lunny on Farpoint Recordings and find more of her work at her website.

Lina Andonovska has been an important figure in contemporary music for some time now and has built a reputation as a flute-player who is equally at home in contemporary jazz and classical music. She has been especially prominent in Ireland where she has played with groups such as Crash Ensemble, and performed works by Irish composers such as Ann Cleare, Linda Buckley, Anna Murray and Michael Gallen. Check out Lina’s debut album ‘A Way A Lone A Last’ or find her other work on her website.

So, join us on this journey, as we introduce the two performers, shepherding them into the studio while completely hiding from each other’s sight. A curtain bisects the studio, obscuring the artists from one another.

They begin to play, exchanging musical thoughts, sentences, developing a theme and interacting only through the music, an open mind and completely blind. Our studio curtain drops at a certain point and they come face to face with their new improvising partner. Does the musical conversation change?

Blind Date Jazz is an exploration in listening, intuition, skill and spontaneity, all unique hallmarks of the improvising artist.Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter to stay updated!

“Jazz music is the power of now. There is no script. It’s conversation.”

- Wynton Marsalis