Namekawa Maki (JP)
As a soloist and chamber musician who feels just as much at home with classical, romantic and contemporary repertoire, Maki Namekawa gives regular concerts and recitals at international venues such as the Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the Berlin Music Biennial, the 32nd Stagione dei Concerti in Latina (Italy), the Eclat Festival in Stuttgart, the Ruhr Piano Festival, the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, the Pianorama Festival hosted by Westdeutscher Rundfunk in Cologne, and the Center for Arts and Media (ZKM) in Karlsruhe.
She has recorded for the German classical music broadcasting entities located in Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, Saarbrücken, Frankfurt and Cologne, as well as for Swiss Radio and for Radio France.
Namekawa dedicates the greater part of her performing activities to modern music, often featuring the piano concertos of Schnittke, Liszt, Schönberg and Elliott Carter in her concert programs. Further recitals and chamber music concerts have led her to appearances in Austria, Ireland, Germany, Japan and other countries.
Maki Namekawa first studied at Kunitachi Conservatory in Tokyo under Mikio Ikezawa and under Henriette Puig-Roget at the Paris Conservatoire. In 1994 she won the Leonid Kreuzer Prize in Japan. Then, in 1995, she continued her studies at Karlsruhe Conservatory with professors Werner Genuit and Kaya Han, and concluded them with a soloist exam cum laude.
She thereafter went on perfecting her artistic abilities: in Classical/Romantic repertoire with Edith Picht-Axenfeld and György Kurtag, and in New Music with Prof. Stefan Utwan (Saarbrücken Conservatory), Pierre-Laurent Aimard (Cologne) and Florent Boffard (Ensemble Intercontemporain, Paris).
Maki Namekawa now lives in Karlsruhe. Apart from her numerous concert appearances, she teaches in Karlsruhe and in Saarbrücken. In 2002 she taught at the Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, where she also performed in several world premieres of new works.
