Kishi Bashi with String Quartet to Perform at The Center for the Arts

GRASS VALLEY, CA, January 4, 2022 – The Center for the Arts is pleased to welcome singer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter Kishi Bashi to the Marisa Funk Theater on January 21, 2023. Kishi Bashi is the pseudonym of Athens, Georgia-based, violin virtuoso Kaoru Ishibashi. His musical vocabulary draws from indie pop, rock, beatboxing, vocal looping, and classical violin, as he defies easy categorization, and yet has achieved international appeal.

Shortly after Ishibashi debuted his full-length solo album 151a on Indianapolis label Joyful Noise Recordings, NPR All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen listed Kishi Bashi as his favorite new artist of 2012 noting that he created “a radiant, uplifting soundscape.”

Since then, Ishibashi has recorded and toured internationally as a violinist with diverse artists such as Regina Spektor, Sondre Lerche, and most recently, the indie rock band, Of Montreal. He has been invited to play in major festivals such as SXSW and Austin City Limits and has gone on an extensive US tour with supporting acts such as The Last Bison (from his native Hampton Roads, Virginia). He is a favorite on NPR, describing him as a master of composition, “building songs from the ground up — from live violin loops to layered singing to beatboxing. His songs are complicated pocket symphonies steeped in classical playing and 21st-century pop.” He writes hauntingly beautiful songs that are always interesting and full of promise with tight melodies steeped in expansive improvisations, melded together by looping. 

Following his 2016 album release of Sonderlust, he released his album Omoiyari (a Japanese word for the idea of creating compassion toward other people by thinking about them) in 2019, in support of his feature-length documentary Omoiyari: A songfilm by Kishi Bashi which explores minority identity and the incarceration of Japanese Americans in WWII. After 4 years in the making and over $100,000 donated by backers across the globe, the film officially premiered at the SXSW Film Festival in March 2022.

In 2020 Kishi Bashi scored the entire soundtrack for the touching Apple TV+ kids show Stillwater with composer Toby Chu, and released it as an album featuring 18 tracks of uplifting orchestral tunes. In 2022 he announced the re-issue of his debut album 151a in honor of the 10-year anniversary of its original release, as his first double LP which includes original demos of all the album tracks. 151a (Demo-arigato Version) is available now on all streaming platforms.

Don’t miss the expansive soundscapes of Kishi Bashi and String Quartet at The Center for the Arts on January 21, 2023.