Project: QUANTUM ARIA (Carl Stone + Akaihirume)

Photo: Yasumune Morishige

Akaihirume is a Japanese singer whose ear is always tuned to the world’s sounds, which she keeps as materials in her shell.
As both an original songwriter and an improviser she has worked with a variety of artists, musicians, action-painters, photographers and more.

First classically trained, then took a stint as a rock drummer in several Japanese garage bands. She began her career as a singer/songwriter in 2012.

Carl Stone and Akaihirume began their collaboration in 2015 in Tokyo, and formalized as a unit in 2025, under the name QUANTUM ARIA. They have performed for the BBC, around Japan, Canada, Taiwan, Singapore and throughout the United States, to enthusiastic responses and standing ovations. Recent festival appearances include Bang On A Can Long Play (Brooklyn), send & receive (Winnipeg), Other Minds (San Francisco) and LANDFES (Tokyo). In writing about a recent New York performance, critic Nick Zurko has written: “What unfolded onstage was both sonically accessible and temporally exhaustive as Akaihirume and Stone entered into what could be described as an esoteric and aural courting dance that entranced the entire audience….I’ve never been moved to jump out of my seat at the end of the performance but I’ll be damned if I didn’t even realize I was standing until I had been clapping rapturously along with the rest of the crowd for a couple minutes.”