Dr Kenji Fujimura

'delicate piano writing, brilliantly executed by the pianist Kenji Fujimura' (Gramophone)

​Dr Kenji Fujimura is an internationally-acclaimed pianist, chamber musician and researcher. He is well known for his championing of both new music and music which has been unduly neglected. This is reflected in his diverse and eclectic repertoire of both solo piano and chamber music. Recent CDs include: Trio Anima Mundi – Romantic Piano Trios (2013 Musicweb International Recording of the Year), English Piano Trios (2020 Musicweb Recording of the Month, January), Complete Violin Sonatas of George Frederick Pinto, and The Messiaen Nexus (2014 Limelight Chamber Music Recording of the Year) with violinist Elizabeth Sellars; William Hurlstone Complete Piano Music (Musicweb International Recording of the Month, May 2015; Fanfare USA Colin Clarke’s 2015 ‘Top 5 Want List’).Upcoming publications include recordings of the solo piano music by Theodore Dubois, Ernest Guiraud, Leo Livens and others, piano trios by Algernon Ashton (Toccata Classics). Most recent releases include volume 1 of the complete 27 piano trios of Carl Gottlieb Reissiger (Toccata Classics) and a chapter in the volume Debussy in Context for Cambridge University Press.

​Kenji is also a multi-award-winning composer. Self-taught, he 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. His current musical language reflects upon history and tradition. His works have been performed throughout USA, Romania, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia. Recent prizes include the Singapore Asian Composers Festival award, William Lincer Foundation Award (New York), 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). New commissions to be premiered in the 2022-2024 seasons include works for solo piano, cello/piano duo, and piano trio -a new work supported by the City of Melbourne. His music is distributed by Universal Edition (Vienna).

A native of Japan now resident in Australia, Kenji's formative music studies were undertaken in both countries. Kenji completed his four-year Bachelor of Music degree with Honours in two years at The University of Melbourne, and subsequently pursued postgraduate studies in Melbourne and London, winning prizes and accolades as pianist, fortepianist, and chamber musician. His principal teachers were Ronald Farren-Price, Sumiko Hirose, Joane Simons, and Frank Wibaut.

​A highly respected pedagogue and administrator, Kenji’s tertiary-teaching career began while he was still an undergraduate. With over thirty years' experience teaching at the tertiary level, he was on staff at the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music, Monash University, for nearly two decades, serving various roles including Deputy/Acting Head of School, Coordinator of Classical Performance, Coordinator of Postgraduate Studies, and Associate Professor of Keyboard, before retiring in December 2018 from full-time academia. He currently juggles multiple roles, including Executive Director at the International Academy of Musical Arts (IAMUSICA), Founding Member of international award-winning chamber music ensemble Trio Anima Mundi, Patron of the Association of Eisteddfod Societies of Australia, an examiner for the Australian Music Examinations Board, and an Associate Lecturer at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music (The University of Melbourne), as well as teaching a select group of private piano and composition students. He is also on various competition, funding, and awards panels, including for the City of Melbourne Arts Grants, the Sparta International Film Festival, and Chair of the Melbourne International Piano and Strings Festival Competition. In 2015 he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music, London, for his ‘significant contribution to the music profession’.

​​Teaching - Consulting - Adjudicating

Kenji is an experienced pedagogue with over thirty years of teaching at the tertiary level. In addition to his performance teaching, he has supervised many performance research dissertations at the Master's and Doctoral level, including candidates on piano, violin, viola, cello, double bass, clarinet, percussion, french horn etc. Based in Melbourne, Australia, he is regularly invited to be on the teaching staff of a number of institutions; these include the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music (The University of Melbourne) and the Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School. Kenji also maintains a very limited private piano and composition teaching studio for in-person and online lessons. He also offers a small number of online consultations globally, as well as tailored piano coaching intensives.

​​Kenji's students have had tremendous success in examinations (AMEB, ABRSM, Trinity), radio broadcasts, scholarship auditions, VCE/HSC studies (including receiving perfect scores) and at many eisteddfods and competitions in Australia and abroad (USA, China etc.).​

​Kenji continues to have an active schedule as an adjudicator of instrumental, composition, and film competitions in Australia and abroad, and as a consultant and advisor. He is frequently invited to give many workshops and masterclasses every year.

​Kenji's emphasis on imparting to students an all-rounded knowledge and education of music has helped many of his students embark upon long-lasting successful careers both as performers and pedagogues, themselves with important academic and school positions (such as Heads of Music) and/or producing prize-winning students.

NB - Admission into Kenji’s private piano and composition studio is via audition.