Piano

Studied at the Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music and received M.A. degree. Made her debut performance with the music of Toru Takemitsu in postgraduate student period. Held the first solo recital in 1970 and showed her enthusiasm and critical acclaim as an interpreter of new music by such composers as Messiaen, Boulez, Xenakis, Takemitsu, and others. Since her debut, she has been invited regularly and worked globally at the Music Festivals such as the Berlin Festival Week and Paris Autumn Festival in 1972 and made an ensemble “Sound Space ARK” and performed contemporary music actively. Her series of E. Satie concerts (1975-1977) conceived and produced by Kuniharu Akiyama, as well as her recordings and her own editing of complete piano works of E. Satie triggered a “Satie boom” throughout Japan. In 1980, she was invited by Morton Feldman to become a Creative Associate of “The Center of the Creative and Performing Arts” at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Her collaboration with Feldman to his death in 1987 has resulted in performing his music around the world and also of recordings. She won the Kenzo Nakajima Prize (1983 & 2003) and the Kyoto Music Award (1986). She was the director of the “New Ears” concert series in Yokohama (1983-1997). And in spring 2006, she was invited to Maerz Musik Festival in Berlin and performed 5 concerts. And in the fall the performance of Morton Feldman’s pieces has been evaluated as one of the “Best Concerts of the Year” by the New York Times. The first CD of “The Hyper Beatles” has been selected by the New York Times as one of the “Best CDs of 1990”. In 2007, awarded the 58th “Art Encouragement Prize” by the Minister of Education, Culture & Science for the recordings of “Schubert Piano Sonatas” and the concert “Morton Feldman TRIO”. In 2008 won the Merit Prize at the Japan Art Festival for her CD “The Perilous Night -Aki Takahashi Plays John Cage”. Awarded the Purple Ribbon in autumn 2011. And in 2014 she was awarded Asahi Contemporary Music Award.