Michiko Otaki

Michiko Otaki, Pianist

Short Biography

Michiko Otaki was born in the small Japanese coastal town of Hazu. Although both her early academic and musical training was in Japan, all of her collegial and post-graduate study since her arrival in 1977 was done in the U.S., at the San Francisco Conservatory, Manhattan School of Music and the University of Miami, where she received her Doctorate.

Ms. Otaki has been most active in playing chamber music in addition to her solo career. She has performed in most major U.S. cities and abroad in both capacities, including concerts at Washington's National Gallery (broadcast nationwide on NPR's "Performance Today"), Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall (during that hall's celebrated centinnial season), the Chamber Music Hall of the Warsaw Philharmonic, Pick-Staiger Hall at Northwestern University, and festivals including "Music in Old Cracow" in Poland.

In 1988 Michiko Otaki began a unique collaboration with the Warsaw Wind Quintet, with whom she has made ten extensive tours of the U.S. and Europe and released two critically acclaimed CD recordings (Polish Chamber Music and Sextets of Thuille/Poulenc/Tansmann). With this ensemble she has performed nearly 200 concerts in major cities such as New York, Chicago, Washington, Boston, Atlanta, Miami, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Freiburg, Cracow and Warsaw.

Ms. Otaki has also performed with the Wallinger String Quartet from Czech Republic and toured with the Swiss Woodwind Quintet with whom she recorded the sextet of Hans Huber.

As soloist she recorded Mozart Concerti (K. 415 and K. 449)on CD with the Brno Chamber Orchestra, with whom she toured the U.S. in 1996,1998 and 2002. She was featured soloist with the Slovak Sinfonietta of Zilina on its U.S. debut tour in 1993, recorded Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto with them for the Opus label, and toured the U.S. again in 1997. The Star Ledger wrote of her performance with them that "she certainly exhibited all the attributes of greatness: expressive sensitivity, power, facility and stage presence." Ms. Otaki has performed several concerts with the Pilsen Philharmonic Orchestra in the Czech Republic in 2001 and 2003, and has recorded the Schumann Piano concerto with them for the TNC label. She performed Chopin's Concerto in E minor with the Pilsen Philharmonic on their U.S. tour in February of 2004. She toured the U.S. with the Brno Chamber Soloists in the Fall of 2005.