Akiko Ebi

Japanese pianist Akiko Ebi launched her international career as the winner of the Grand Prix in the International Marguerite Long Competition in Paris, in 1975, where she was also awarded four special prizes by Arthur Rubinstein. In 1980, she won Fifth Prize in the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw, where jury member Martha Argerich took note of her artistry and became her mentor. After winning a competition in Japan, Ebi continued her training at the Paris Conservatoire with Aldo Ciccolini and pursued additional studies with Vlado Perlemuter and Louis Kentner. She has performed throughout theworld, recently with such orchestras as L’Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, L’Orchestra Philharmonique de Radio France, Monte Carlo Philharmonic, NHK Symphony, Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra, and orchestras in Russia, Poland, Slovakia and Argentina, with such conductors as  Skrowaczewski, Janowski, Guschulbauer, Foster and Sado. In addition to her recent two-piano recitals with Martha Argerich, her chamber music performances include collaborations with such distinguished artists as Ivry Gitlis, Augustin Dumay, Regis Pasquier, Angela Hewitt, Michel Dalberto, the Morauges Quintet, and the Parisii and Manfred quartets. She appears annually at many prestigious international music festivals, including La Roque d’Anthéron, Menton, Echternach, Journée de Nantes, Lugano, Lisbon, Toledo, Tokyo and Salt Lake City. A prolific recording artist, she has recorded Chopin’s complete Etudes, Preludes, Nocturnes and Impromptus, as well as works by Brahms, Liszt, Franck, Webern and Pierne. In 2012 The Fryderyk Chopin Institute released her CD in the series ‘The Real Chopin’ with Chopin’s Preludes and Impromptus on period piano Erard (1838). She was awarded a Grand Prix d’Or for her recording of the works of Dynam-Victor Fumet, and also for her disc of compositions by Hikari Oe. That important disc brought international attention to this gifted composer, who was born developmentally disabled and unable to speak, but found a unique voice through his music. Regarded as one of the most important Japanese interpreters of French music, Ebi was named a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government in 1993, and in 2002 she received Japan’s prestigious Exxon-Mobile Music Prize. She has served on the juries of the world’s most important international piano competitions. The pianist has performed in the ‘Chopin and his Europe’ festival twice before (2010, 2013).