Originally from Kyoto, Japan, Rumi is a Los Angeles-based performer, composer and recording artist specializing in Jazz and Afro-Latin music on flute. She holds a Master of Music degree in Afro-Latin Music Performance from California State University, Los Angeles.
In addition to leading her own band "Zabumba Rumba," Rumi is a member of Holly Hofmann's "Flutology," featured in concert and clinic at the 2015 Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival. Rumi is also a regular member of "Bossa Zuzu," LA's neo-Bossa-Nova project produced by multi-GRAMMY winner Peter Erskine.
Rumi began to play piccolo and switched to flute when she was in junior high school. She took first place in the flute ensemble category at the Kobe Flute Convention Competitions in Japan. She studied with Takako Shiraishi at Music high school in Kyoto and she was selected for honorable mention at the Student Music Competition of Japan sponsored by Mainichi Newspaper.
After graduating high school, Rumi went to Austria and studied classical flute with Dr. Werner Tripp at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. After that, she began to study jazz flute with Shinpei Inoue, became interested in world music, and started composing her own original music that expressed the culmination of her diverse styles and training.
Since then she has participated on many CDs as a recording artist. She regularly performs jazz and her own original music in throughout Southern California. She was the winner of the NFA's 39th Annual National Flute Association Convention Jazz Flute Master Class Competition in 2011. She studied Jazz with Holly Hofmann, Bruce Forman, Otmaro Ruiz and studied Afro Cuban Music with Danilo Lozano. Rumi is also an educator who teaches at various Southern California music schools.