Kimio Eto

Kimio Eto (衛藤公雄, Etō Kimio) (surname Etō, born 1924 in Ōita) is a blind Japanese musician who plays the koto. He began musical training at the age of eight with the renowned master Michio Miyagi. When he was eleven composed his first work, and by the age of sixteen he had received three consecutive grand prizes as artist and composer from the national ministry and guild.
Eto moved to the United States in the 1950s with the intention to popularize the koto in the Western world. By the mid-1960s he became a well known figure in the United States music recitals and concerts. He worked most notably with the American composer Henry Cowell on his Concerto for Koto and Orchestra, on which Eto was a soloist playing alongside the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski at the Philadelphia Academy of Music in December 1964.

Albums

• Sound Of The Koto (1958)
• Koto Music (World Pacific Records, 1959)
• Koto & Flute (World Pacific Records, 1960) with Bud Shank
• Art Of The Koto (Elektra Records, 1962)
• Koto Master (World Pacific Records, 1963)
• Sound Of The Koto (compilation, él Records, 2013)