Miki Aoki, Piano

Biography

Miki Aoki made her London Royal Festival Hall debut at the age of 12 and has since continued to perform on international stages. Recognized for her diverse abilities as pianist and as a collaborative artist, Ms Aoki combines her career performing solo recitals and chamber music, with working along side young violinists. Ms Aoki is currently appointed as senior lecturer at Graz University for Music and the Performing Arts, in Austria. Recent and upcoming highlights include a Japan tour with violinist Andrey Baranov and appearances at St-Petersburg Philharmonic Hall, the Copenhagen Chamber Music Festival and the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad. Ms Aoki is recording exclusively for German Label Hänssler Profil. Her first CD of Z. Kodaly's piano works was released in the fall of 2011 and won critical acclaim. BBC Music magazine called it „... a genuinely memorable performance“. The second CD, 'The Belyayev Project', featuring fascinating compositions varying from solo piano works by Liadow, Glazunov and Blumenfeld to the piano Trio by Rimsky-Korsakov will be released in spring 2013. Ms Aoki has performed on the stages of such prestigious venues as St. Martin-in-the Fields, St. John’s Smith Square, the Royal Festival Hall and the Purcell Room at South Bank Centre, the Barbican centre (U.K.), Laeizhalle (Germany), Munetsugu Hall, Philia Hall (Japan), Wiener-Saal, Großer Saal des Mozarteums (Austria) as well as in festivals such as Festspiele Mecklenburg Vorpommern, Salzburger Festspiele, Rheingau Festival (Germany), Menuhin Festival Gstaad (Switzerland), Beaulieu-sur-la Mer Festival (France), Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival (USA),Tembi Festival (Inodnesia), Phnom Penh International Music festival (Cambodia) and International Classical Music Festival. (Myanmar). She has performed with National Symphony, London Soloist Chamber Orchestra, Hamburg Camerata and Washington Sinfonietta. The legendary violinist Itzhak Perlman invited Ms Aoki to his Chamber Music festival in Long Island, USA in 2006. Ms Aoki's performances have been broadcasted on NDR-North German Radio, RBB-Radio Berlin Brandenburg, BR Classics, WDR, Radio Suisse Romande and Hessicher Rundfunk. Collaborating musicians include Pierre Amoyal, Andrey Baranov (2012 winner of Queen Elisabeth International Violin Competition), Francois Salque, Andreas Brantelid, Kuss Quartet, Ariel Quartet, as well as the members of prestigious orchestras such as Gewandhaus Leipzig, NDR Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Bayerische Rundfunk Orchestra, Tornhalle Zürich, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Orchestre de la Radio Suisse Romande, Atlanta Philharmonic Orchestra and Gothenburg Symphony. Dedicating much time to young violinists, Ms Aoki worked as collaborative pianist at Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg (Kolja Blacher) and at Conservatoire de Lausanne (Pierre Amoyal), as well as at the Mozarteum Summer Academy and the Kronberg Academy. She plays for masterclasses of today's most recognized violinsits-Maxim Vengerov, Pavel Vernikov, Donald Weilerstein, Christian Tetzlaff, Gidon Kremer and many others. Ms Aoki started playing the piano at age 4 and moved to London at age 9 where she joined the Purcell School of Music. She holds degrees from Indiana University and Yale University. In 2007 Ms Aoki obtained a distinction in the Konzertexamen degree at Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg. (Mit Auszeichnung). Her main teachers were Roshan Magub, James Gibb, Reiko Neriki, György Sebök, Boris Berman and Evgeni Koroliov.