Credit: Michael Spencer
|
Pianist Miki Sawada, whose performance made The Boston Globe’s list “The classical concerts that made me fall in love with live music again,” is a fearless musician who is taking classical music where others are not.
As the founder and director of Gather Hear, Miki is traveling the country state-by-state with a piano in a van to perform in community gathering spaces instead of concert halls. The mission is to connect with Americans across socioeconomic and political boundaries; through music, Gather Hear attempts to find what unites us as humans in a nation of deep divide. Miki has given more than 90 free concerts in Alaska (2017), West Virginia (2018), Massachusetts (2021), Utah (2021), Louisiana (2022), Alabama (2023), and Maine (2024), very often in rural communities where no live classical music is available. She has directed films about her tours which have screened at film festivals (Independent Film Festival Boston, No Man’s Land Film Festival). When not trucking around with her own piano, Miki enjoys a career of solo and chamber music, with a special affinity for contemporary music. Miki has been featured at venues and occasions such as: Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, Helsinki Music Centre, The Arctic Philharmonic (Norway), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater (NYC), Roulette (Brooklyn), MATA Festival (NYC), Portland Ovations, 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, Art Base (Belgium), and Moulin d'Andé (France). 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). She recently made her soloist debut with the North Mississippi Symphony Orchestra and Portland Columbia Symphony Orchestra, and appears with Chameleon Arts Ensemble in Boston. She has served on faculty at the Heifetz Institute. |
|
Miki released her debut album "A Kind of Mirror" through slashsound records in 2021. It is a five-movement electroacoustic work written for her by Brendon Randall-Myers that takes inspiration from long distance running. It was used in a commercial for Tracksmith, the running apparel company. The album review was a Bandcamp feature article:
Wafting electronics swirl around the piano’s melodies to form interlocking patterns, creating a physical and emotional sensation to ultimately make the listener feel as if they’re part of something larger than themselves. 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 is an ultramarathon runner and completed her first 100 mile race through the Oregon mountains in 2023. She is a running coach through her business, Più Mosso Running. She lives in Boston with her violinist husband Kristopher Tong (violinist, Borromeo Quartet) and German Shepherd mix rescue dog named Shakira. Landing page photo credit: Andrew Rizzardi, taken on the Denali Highway in Alaska |
|