New York native Manami Mizumoto started her lifelong relationship with music at age 3 on the violin. Early exposure to chamber music both at home and later in her studies, sparked in her a devoted love of collaboration. This led to a fascination with performing contemporary music and working with living composers, which recently led to a project to benefit women’s shelters in NYC. With Uhuru Quartet, a group she is a founding member of, Manami co-created and led a songwriting workshop as well as a benefit concert with composer Sato Matsui at the Women In Need shelter, and hopes to continue growing this project with more composer-collaborators and shelters in the future. Her driving curiosity is currently in exploring the dialogue between ancient and contemporary thoughts, as well as the dichotomy between nature and human development. Manami currently studies at the Juilliard School, where she is in the Historical Performance program for her Masters’ degree.