Aki Takahashi made her public debut shortly after graduating from the Tokyo University of Arts with a masters degree in 1970. While acknowledged for her classical musicianship, her enthusiasm and acclaim as a new music interpreter have attracted the attention of many composers. Cage, Feldman, Takemitsu, Yun, Oliveros, Ruders, Satoh, Lucier and Garland, to name a few, have all created works for her.

Ms. Takahashi received the first Kenzo Nakajima prize in 1982, and was recipient of the first Kyoto Music Award (1986). She directed the “New Ears” concert series in Yokohama (1983-97), was artist-in-residence at SUNY Buffalo (1980-81) and guest professor at the California Institute of the Arts (1984).

Her landmark recording of 20 contemporary piano works, Aki Takahashi Piano Space, received the Merit Prize at the Japan Art Festival (1973). Her series of Erik Satie concerts (1975-77) heralded a Satie boom in Japan, resulting in her editing all of his piano works for Zen-On and recording them on Toshiba-EMI. She created the Hyper-Beatles project with Toshiba, which invited 47 international composers to arrange/recompose their favorite Beatles tunes.