About

Credit: Michael Spencer

Miki is a rare breed of classical musician, equipped with training from top conservatories yet boldly pursuing classical music’s possibilities outside of the traditional concert hall.

Miki is best known for her Gather Hear Tour, in which she travels to all 50 states with a piano in a van to perform in rural community gathering spaces. The project explores classical music's power to bring us together through an elevated communal experience, with the goal of igniting real connections among Americans across state lines in a time of deep division. Miki has performed over 35 concerts in Alaska and West Virginia, with upcoming tours in Massachusetts and Utah. Gather Hear has received grants from New Music USA, Alaska Humanities Forum, Massachusetts Cultural Council, and TourWest. The tour is documented on Instagram and a YouTube vlog series.

Highlights of Miki's 2019 season included debut chamber music performances in Norway in the Arctic Circle, as well as a solo feature at Roulette Intermedium in Brooklyn, NY. Other recent highlights include: a solo recital on the Dame Myra Hess concert series in Chicago which was broadcast live on WFMT radio, a debut recital with cello partner Lukas Stasevskij at Helsinki Music Centre, solo recitals in Japan, Belgium, and the U.S., and contemporary music performances in New York City at venues such as Spectrum NYC, DiMenna Center, The Kitchen, and Museum of Natural History. Miki’s performances in the past have been featured at venues and occasions such as: Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lincoln Center Stage on Holland America Line, the Oneppo Chamber Music Series at Yale, Toronto Summer Music Festival, Music on Main (Vancouver), Chicago Symphony Center’s Macy’s Day of Music, the Banff Centre, New Music New Haven, PianoFest in the Hamptons, and Art Base (Belgium). A frequent radio guest, she has been featured for live interviews and performances on WQXR (NYC), WFMT (Chicago), KUAC (Fairbanks), West Virginia Public Broadcasting (Charleston), and All Classical Portland (Oregon). In the summers, she teaches and performs as a faculty member of Heifetz Institute and Point CounterPoint.

Miki has championed the works of her composer-peers, and numerous solo pieces have been dedicated to and premiered by Miki. Most recently, she has received a 2020 New Music USA Project Grant to commission solo works by composers Ariel Friedman and Elisabet Curbelo. A 2018 New Music USA Project Grant allowed her to commission and record an evening-length work, A Kind of Mirror, by Brendon Randall-Myers. A single release of Phong Tran's solo work "Rotation" dedicated to Miki and available for download. She has been part of NYC's MATA Festival, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival's Contemporary Ensemble, Atlantic Music Festival's Contemporary Ensemble, and has spent multiple sessions at Avaloch Farm Music Institute's residency program working with composers.

As an educator and thinker, Miki finds ways to connect people with the power of classical music off of the stage. Miki was a resident musician and founder of the piano program at Music Haven, an organization that seeks to empower youth by providing mentoring and tuition-free music education to students from underserved communities in New Haven. Miki also founded NewMusic4us, a project through which young and emerging composers write beginner-level chamber music pieces for young students, with the goal of connecting composers and young students so as to re-evaluate our attitudes toward both contemporary music and music education.

Miki received her formal training in solo piano performance. She studied at Yale School of Music (Artist Diploma) with Wei-Yi Yang, Eastman School of Music (Master of Music) with Natalya Antonova and Northwestern University (Bachelor of Music) with James Giles.

Miki's non-musical loves include camping, backpacking/hiking, trail running, writing, horses, and house plants. Her writing has been featured in Clavier Companion and Alaska Humanities Forum magazines. She recently placed first overall in the Midstate Massive Ultramarathon 30 mile division, and can often be found running around the woods with her dog Shakira.

Landing page photo credit: Andrew Rizzardi, taken on the Denali Highway in Alaska

Credit: Chris Jackson