ITOH Kei (piano)

©Akira Muto

Kei Itoh studied piano with Kazuko Ariga since her childhood. After graduating Toho Gakuen High School, she went on to　study at Universität Mozarteum Salzburg and Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover where she studied with Hans Leygraf.

Since 1979, she has won numerous awards at international competitions including the top prize at the 32nd Internationalen Musikwettbewerbs der ARD München in 1983, for which she was the first Japanese to win the award inpiano division. In the same year, she made her Munich debut with Bayerische Staatsorchester conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch.

In 1987, she began recording a CD series of “Schumanniana”, a collection of piano works by Robert Schumann. In May of next year, she played a concert commemorating the release of the recording.

In 2015, her CD “Franz Schubert Klavierwerke 6” won the 53rd Record Academy Award and the 70th time Agency for Cultural Affairs art festival prize, and in 2016 “DUO 5” withviolinist Keisuke Okazaki received the 54^th Record Academy Award. Her latest album is “Beethoven Klavierwerke 2” released in May 2020.

She has performed with numerous orchestras in and outside of Japan including Symphonieorchesterdes BayerischenRundfunks, SWF Sinfonieorchester Baden Baden und Freiburg, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Orkiestra FilharmoniiNarodowej w Warszawie, and Ceská filharmonie.

Itoh has been invited to the music festivals, including La Folle Journée au Japon, the Saito Kinen Festival, TakefuInternational Music Festival, Obuse Music　Festival Risona, Risonare Chamber Music Festival.

She plays chamber music with Nobuko Imai, Antonio Meneses and Keisuke Okazaki.
Itoh was invited to a judge at Concours de GenèveInternational Music Competition in 2018.

She is currently a professor at Tokyo University of the Arts and a guest professor at Toho

Gakuen College Music Department.