Individual files

Toby Kimura (he/him) is a Japanese Canadian saxophonist based in Montreal, Quebec. Inspired by his family, namely the paintings of his obaasan and his mother’s lullabies from Nova Scotia, Toby creates music as an exploration of the self and of cultural hybridity. As a mixed-race artist, Toby seeks to reimagine belonging through the idioms of the inherently contradictory and expansive world of classical and contemporary saxophone music. In this pursuit, Toby performs regularly in solo and ensemble contexts and highlights under-represented composers in his programming. He has performed with McGill’s Wind Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra and Contemporary Music Ensemble as well as with his two saxophone quartets, the Seraphina Saxophone Quartet and Quatuor Rouge. Likewise, in his interest in the expressive possibilities of contemporary music, Toby has worked alongside composers and premiered new works, such as Bull in a China Shop for solo baritone saxophone by Nicholas Ma. In recognition of his excellence in performance, Toby was the recipient of the Frank Mills Scholarship, the Grace Evelyn Tuttle Scholarship, the Sarah Fischer Memorial Award and Student Excellence Awards in 2022 as well as the Phyllis and Bernard Shapiro Scholarship in Instrumental Performance in 2023. Outside of music, Toby is a committed volunteer within the Japanese Canadian community and is the current Vice President for the Quebec Chapter of the National Association of Japanese Canadians. Toby is currently pursuing a Master of Music in Saxophone Performance at McGill’s Schulich School of Music, under the instruction of Marie-Chantal Leclair.