Aki Takahashi

Aki Takahashi ( Japanese 高橋 ア キ , Takahashi Aki ; born September 6, 1944 in Kamakura ) is a Japanese pianist who made a name for herself as an interpreter of new music , but also recorded the piano works of Franz Schubert .

Live and act

Takahashi comes from a musical family; her father was a music teacher; the composer Yūji Takahashi is her older brother. Her mother began taking piano lessons at the age of five. She completed her instrumental training at the Tōkyō Geijutsu Daigaku with a master's degree.

During this time she made her concert debut with the performance of music by Tōru Takemitsu . In 1970 Takahashi played her first solo concert; Since appearing at the Paris Festival dAutomne and the Berliner Festwochen 1972, she has performed worldwide. A concert cycle inspired by her husband, the art critic Kuniharu Akiyama , in which she presented the piano music of Erik Satie between 1975 and 1977 in Tokyo, was the starting point for a Satie boom in Japan; as a result she played the entire piano works of Satie.

Takahashi's enthusiasm for new music aroused the interest of many composers: John Cage , Morton Feldman , Isang Yun , Akira Nishimura , Somei Satoh , Alvin Lucier , Peter Garland , Maki Ishii and Carl Stone have written compositions for them. She has also interpreted the repertoire of Olivier Messiaen , Pierre Boulez , Iannis Xenakis , Giacinto Scelsi , Luciano Berio , Richard Teitelbaum , Tōru Takemitsu and works by her brother.

Your interpretations have received several awards, including a. with the 1983 Kenzo Nakajima Prize, the 1986 Kyoto Music Award and the Grand Prize, and the 2008 Japan Art Festival Prize .

Web links

• Aki Takahashi website
• Brief portrait ( Donaueschinger Musiktage )
• Aki Takahashi at Discogs (English)