Hidemi Akaiwa
Hidemi Akaiwa
Image courtesy of artist
Hidemi Akaiwa is a Japanese pianist and composer. At the age of 30, she shifted from a successful corporate career to focusing on jazz music. She received a full scholarship to Berklee, where she participates in the college’s Global Jazz Institute, Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, Planet MicroJam Institute, and Interdisciplinary Arts Institute. These experiences have allowed her to study with world-class musicians including Danilo Pérez, Kenny Werner, Terri Lyne Carrington, Kris Davis, Billy Childs, David Fiuczynski, and many others. Her passion is to create a new art form infusing the tenets of Japanese zen with the sounds of jazz and microtonal contemporary classical music.