Eriko Tokura Murray (Soprano) – Guest of DanceArtTheater

Japan-born Eriko started her singing career at the age of 10, performing with Kurashiki City Children’s Choir. At 15, she won first prize for her solo at the Sanyo Music Competition. In 1995 Eriko moved to Sri Lanka and performed with the Sri Lanka Symphony Orchestra and the Chamber Music Society of Colombo as well as solo performances and international operas. Some of her highlighted performances include the world premier of “Beyond The Horizon for Voice and Orchestra” by the late Dr. Premasiri Khemadasa (at the Sri Lankan presidential mansion – Temple Tree), the world premier of “Paths in The Forest for Eight Solo Strings and Voice” by Stephen Allen, and sang the theme song of the international award winning movie “Akasa Kusum”. In 2005, Eriko was the subject of a Japanese TV documentary for her charity work to assist the victims of the Tsunami which took many lives just after Christmas, 2004.

Since moving to Washington DC in 2010, Eriko has joined the 7 Sopranos® production (www.7sopranos.com), the Fairfax Choral Society, and she has been supporting the Washington Tokyo Women’s Club chorus. 7Sopranos® was invited to sing at Carnegie Hall on October 5^th 2013. She has produced several groups. In 2013 she founded a Children Chorus group “Kodomo Chorus” with purpose of learning Japanese language and songs. They had some performance at Sakura Matsuri in 2013. She also produced Japanese a cappella sisters who had performances at GMU and Kennedy Center with the traditional drums Wa-Daiko. In 2014, Fumihito Shimizu, Tetsuro Konishi and she founded a new performing unit called 3PerformersJapan in Tokyo which expresses “Wa” Japanese culture with the western method of singing, dancing and music. This unit had a performance tour in USA in 2015. She has been appointed to sing national anthems at Embassy of Japan, Washington DC since 2013 for designated ceremonies. She sings as a solo at her concerts and joint-concerts regularly in USA and Japan. She also does the Japanese traditional dance (Onoe ryu).