After graduating from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts, the pianist Aki Kuroda went on to further her studies in Italy with Bruno Mezzena, receiving a degree in twentieth-century piano music with distinction from the Accademia Musicale Pescarese.
Aki performs extensively as a soloist and a chamber musician both in Japan and in Europe, especially in Italy. She won first prizes in the 1993 French Music Competition and in the 1997 Contemporary Music Competition. In 1995, she was awarded the Xavier Montsalvage Prize for Performance of Contemporary Music for Piano in Spain. Beside the classical repertoire, Kuroda has performed pieces by many contemporary composers, such as G. Ligeti, I. Xenakis, F. Donatoni, P. Boulez, R. Campo, M. Mochizuki and T. Takemitsu. In 2003, she gave a brilliant performance in the Teatro Regio di Parma, playing Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and a Maurizio Pisati’s composition dedicated to her. She subsequently performed M. Jarrell’s Modifications at the Ticino Musica Festival. In 2004, Kuroda
gave a wonderful performance of Schoenberg’s Kammer- symphonie Op. 9 in its piano solo version, in Tokyo and Osaka. At present, Kuroda works with renowned musicians, including Giorgio Bernasconi (conductor), Alessandro Carbonare (clarinet), Elena Casoli (guitar), Ole Edvard Antonsen (trumpet), Prometheus Quartet, Catherine Manoukian (violin), Keiko Urushihara (violin), Mari Fujiwara (cello).
She has devoted special attention to Astor Piazzolla’s works, to whom her first solo albums are dedicated (Japan Victor). Kuroda is acclaimed not only as a classical and contemporary music pianist, but also as a tango and jazz music performer. Her videogame music recording Final Fantasy X. XIII, Piano Collection has been universally praised. In 2004, she released the album Tarkus and Pictures at an Exhibition, dedicated to Keith Emerson’s works. In 2008, she performed the new Sylvano Bussotti’s composition, The Poetic Keyboard, at the Cagliari Spaziomusica Festival. In 2014 she released her album “Firebird” of 20th century piano transcriptions with Odradek Records.