Nami Ejiri

Nami Ejiri was born in Tokyo, the daughter of a pianist mother. Her grandfather’s expansive classical record collection along with piano lessons from Takahiro Sonoda, a pianist who worked with conductors such as Herbert von Karajan and Sergiu Ceibidache, had awakened in her a love of European music already at the age of three.

She studied piano with Yoshimi Tamaki at the Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo and was invited to play for the Imperial Family of Japan as the best graduate of all higher education institutions in Japan.

Concerts and competitions regularly led Nami to Europe, and since 1998 she has lived in Germany, the country whose music she particularly loves. In the same year she continued her studies under Lev Natochenny at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts and graduated with distinction.

Since 2006 the mother of two has been a professor of piano at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts. She gives master classes in Germany and abroad and also serves on the panel of judges for several competitions.

Nami is an award winner of numerous international piano competitions. In 2001 she won the Vianna da Motta International Music Competition in Portugal. She was awarded further prizes in Italy (Porrino, Pecar, Cantu, Casella), Austria (Vienna), Poland (Warsaw) und Japan (Tokyo International, Sonoda/Oita).

Her concerts at the Alte Oper in 2009 and during the Kultursommer Nordhessen in 2012 were broadcast by Radio Hesse (HR).

In 2002, her debut CD recording of Modest Mussorgski’s Pictures at an Exhibition and a piano arrangement of the opera Boris Godunov was nominated CD of the month by Piano News. Two further outstanding recordings followed in 2009: Bunte Blätter and a CD of works by Chopin. In 2014 GENUIN classics issued Nami’s recording of the late works of Schubert, a CD whose sensitive musicality attracted widespread critical attention.

Various concert tours have taken the pianist across the globe. On these tours she played with outstanding orchestras and conductors: the Gulbenkian Orchestra under Lawrence Foster, the Kurashiki Music Festival Orchestra under Takashi Asahina, the Mexico State Symphony under Enrique Batiz, the Warsaw Philharmonic under Kazimierz Kord, the Polish National Radio Orchestra under Antoni Wit, the Polish Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra under Wojciech Rajski, the Poznan Philharmonic Orchestra under Michael Sanderling, the Toho Gakuen Orchestra under George Pherivanian and the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra under Naoto Otomo.

In demand as a pianist for chamber music, Nami is a member of the Styraburg Ensemble and performs regularly with members of the Vienna Philharmonic, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the HR Symphony Orchestra, the Tokyo String Quartet and with the principal violinist of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra. She recently played to great public acclaim at the Alte Oper Frankfurt, in the Bad Homburger Schlosskonzerten, the Weilburger Schlosskonzerten, at the Rheingau Music Festival, the Kultursommer Nordhessen, the Mosel Music Festival, the Chopin Festivals and the International Chamber Music Festival in Zakopane, Poland, in the Vilnius National Philharmonic, at the Cervantino International Festival in Mexico, at the Sintra International Music Festival in Portugal, the Meranofest in Italy, the Styraburg Fest in Austria, the Art Triennial Niigata and the La Folle Journée in Japan.

Nami is actively involved in the Berlitz Educational Foundation for Children and the Project Schulfit in Frankfurt’s Gallusviertel. In addition to this, she regularly plays charity concerts in schools as well as for the victims of natural disasters in Japan.

The artist's homepage:

https://www.namiejiri.com