About
PIANIST. EDUCATOR. IMPROVISOR. COMPOSER.
from Baroque to Contemporary and Jazz
from Baroque to Contemporary and Jazz
Education:
D.M.A., Piano Performance and Literature, Eastman School of Music
M.M., Piano Performance, Northwestern University
B.M., Piano Performance, Eastman School of Music
B.S., Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Rochester
Take Five Scholar, "Health & Community: Influences of Society on Individual Psyches," University of Rochester
D.M.A., Piano Performance and Literature, Eastman School of Music
M.M., Piano Performance, Northwestern University
B.M., Piano Performance, Eastman School of Music
B.S., Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Rochester
Take Five Scholar, "Health & Community: Influences of Society on Individual Psyches," University of Rochester
Photo by Nadine Sherman.
"Shining in her own right without overshadowing [her collaborative musician]...the pianist possesses an exacting facility at the keyboard, playing with a vibrancy not often heard..." (Daniel J. Kushner, Rochester CITY Newspaper)
A sensitive and versatile pianist in styles ranging from Baroque to Contemporary, Yoshiko Arahata maintains a multifaceted musical career as an internationally active pianist, collaborative musician, educator, and composer. Top prize winner of national and international competitions including Bradshaw & Buono and Los Angeles Liszt, her solo performances brought her to several stages in the United States, Japan, Hong Kong, France, Spain, Italy and Greece. Her solo recitals and performances include AmiCa Associazione musicale internazionale de Calatinoin in Sicily (Italy), Amalfi International Piano Festival (Italy), Gijon International Piano Festival (Spain), International Piano Academy Moulin d’Andé (France), Ritos Project (Greece), Preston Bradley Hall (Chicago), Roppongi Concert Hall (Japan), and Hong Kong Cultural Centre (Hong Kong). Her concerto appearances span from traditional works by Bach and Beethoven to contemporary ensembles with featured piano parts by Wolfgang Rihm, György Ligeti, Steve Reich, and Aaron Jay Kernis. Her numerous honors include a Certificate of Recognition by the City of Los Angeles for her dedication to music.
A sought-after collaborative and chamber musician, Arahata has performed with numerous instrumentalists and vocalists, including the renowned violinist Charles Castleman at the Quartet Program and musicians from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. She has gained rigorous collaborative performance and coaching experiences working with diverse array of instrumentalists, vocalists, choirs, and dancers at the Eastman School of Music, Northwestern University, SUNY Geneseo, Nazareth College, University of Rochester, Monroe Community College, Hochstein School of Music and Dance, and the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. During her time in Chicago, she has collaborated actively especially with brass instrumentalists. Moreover, as an active freelance pianist, she has performed on a wide range of performances from classical and jazz styles to musical theater, dance, cabaret shows, as well as church organ services. As a winner of the Luminarts Foundation Grant, Arahata presented "Music after 2000" recital tour for piano-percussion duo with percussionist Joshua Graham in the greater Chicago area. During the pandemic, Arahata performed and produced a virtual Rochester Fringe Festival show with the acclaimed mezzo-soprano Jessica Ann Best featuring a contemporary opera and arts songs. For her production, Rochester CITY Newspaper noted “…this isn’t just a standard recital presentation. Classical musicians, take note: this is how you stage a virtual performance in a pandemic."
Highlights from her chamber music engagements include performances at Garth Newel Music Center Chamber Music Festival, Music Teachers Association of California International Chamber Music Series, and Sunset Concert Series. As a founding member of Elgin trio, she has performed and taught around Texas as an Ensemble-in-Residence of Music Bus Tour. As a chamber musician, Arahata has also appeared on several radio broadcasts including k-Mozart 105.1FM, k-USC 91.5 FM, and Live from Hochstein WXXI-FM 91.5. Equally active as a pianist of large ensembles, she has served as a principal and associate pianist of orchestras and contemporary music ensembles at Eastman, Northwestern, Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and at University of Rochester for the Jazz Ensemble.
Dedicated to paving the new music path, Arahata actively performs contemporary and underrepresented music, improvises, and composes in a variety of styles and mediums, including frequent collaborations with dancers. Her musical vocabulary is diverse and wide-ranging, from historical custom of preluding, ornamentation, and concerti cadenza, to jazz, ballet and modern dance accompaniment, and studio orchestra arrangement. She has presented her research at the 2019 International Society for Improvised Music conference, 2021 NYSMTA/MTNA Symposium, 2021 Conero Piano Pedagogy Conference, and 2022 KU Asian Classical Music Initiatives Conference. She also composed for choreography by the University of Rochester dance faculty Mariah Steele for the dance show “S.E.E.D.,” and they have performed their new dance-composition collaboration “Time to Change” at the 2019 Rochester Fringe Festival. This fall, Arahata will return to the Rochester Fringe Festival with a vetaran dancer and choreographer Ruben Ornelas that features improvisatory silent film accompaniment and music from Japan. In the summer of 2022, Arahata launched a course “The Pianist’s Guide to Dance Accompaniment” at the Eastman School of Music.
Equally committed to education, Arahata has extensive experience teaching and coaching a variety of topics including piano, collaborative piano, music theory, and jazz ensemble. She has taught a wide range of ages and levels of students at Nazareth College, SUNY Geneseo, Alfred University, Hochstein School of Music, Northwestern University, University of Rochester, and the Eastman School of Music, where her teaching was recognized with the Excellence in Teaching Assistant Award. As a studio teaching assistant of Enrico Elisi, she also taught piano majors and taught a course on keyboard techniques and topography of fingering. In addition, Arahata served as a studio and class piano instructor at the Eastman Community Music School for five years and maintained a full studio for both collegiate and community divisions. She has also been a frequent piano faculty member at the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Michigan, and in master classes at various colleges and piano festivals in the US, including the Texas State International Piano Festival.
Arahata grew up in Los Angeles, Tokyo, Hong Kong. She holds degrees in Piano Performance at the Eastman School of Music (B.M., D.M.A.) and Northwestern University (M.M.) under the tutelage of Barry Snyder, Alan Chow, and Enrico Elisi. She also credits many mentors, including Dariusz Terefenko, Jean Barr, Manami Kawamura and Nobuyo Nishizaka. She also has a degree in Brain and Cognitive Sciences (B.S.) and Take Five Scholar Certificate on her research topic “Health and Community: Influence of Society on Individual Psyche” from the University of Rochester. She has studied in master classes with renowned pianists including Menahem Pressler, Robert McDonald, Meng-Chieh Liu, Marc Durand, Natalya Antonova, Nelita True, Boris Slutsky, Malcom Bilson, Alexander Kobrin, and Jose Ramos Mendez.
Currently, Arahata is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Chamber and Collaborative Music at the Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University Bloomington. She also serves on the Creative Music Making Committee of the National Conference of Keyboard Pedagogy and is an active master class teacher and competition adjudicator. Her multicultural upbringing has fostered her love of traveling and photography.
A sensitive and versatile pianist in styles ranging from Baroque to Contemporary, Yoshiko Arahata maintains a multifaceted musical career as an internationally active pianist, collaborative musician, educator, and composer. Top prize winner of national and international competitions including Bradshaw & Buono and Los Angeles Liszt, her solo performances brought her to several stages in the United States, Japan, Hong Kong, France, Spain, Italy and Greece. Her solo recitals and performances include AmiCa Associazione musicale internazionale de Calatinoin in Sicily (Italy), Amalfi International Piano Festival (Italy), Gijon International Piano Festival (Spain), International Piano Academy Moulin d’Andé (France), Ritos Project (Greece), Preston Bradley Hall (Chicago), Roppongi Concert Hall (Japan), and Hong Kong Cultural Centre (Hong Kong). Her concerto appearances span from traditional works by Bach and Beethoven to contemporary ensembles with featured piano parts by Wolfgang Rihm, György Ligeti, Steve Reich, and Aaron Jay Kernis. Her numerous honors include a Certificate of Recognition by the City of Los Angeles for her dedication to music.
A sought-after collaborative and chamber musician, Arahata has performed with numerous instrumentalists and vocalists, including the renowned violinist Charles Castleman at the Quartet Program and musicians from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. She has gained rigorous collaborative performance and coaching experiences working with diverse array of instrumentalists, vocalists, choirs, and dancers at the Eastman School of Music, Northwestern University, SUNY Geneseo, Nazareth College, University of Rochester, Monroe Community College, Hochstein School of Music and Dance, and the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. During her time in Chicago, she has collaborated actively especially with brass instrumentalists. Moreover, as an active freelance pianist, she has performed on a wide range of performances from classical and jazz styles to musical theater, dance, cabaret shows, as well as church organ services. As a winner of the Luminarts Foundation Grant, Arahata presented "Music after 2000" recital tour for piano-percussion duo with percussionist Joshua Graham in the greater Chicago area. During the pandemic, Arahata performed and produced a virtual Rochester Fringe Festival show with the acclaimed mezzo-soprano Jessica Ann Best featuring a contemporary opera and arts songs. For her production, Rochester CITY Newspaper noted “…this isn’t just a standard recital presentation. Classical musicians, take note: this is how you stage a virtual performance in a pandemic."
Highlights from her chamber music engagements include performances at Garth Newel Music Center Chamber Music Festival, Music Teachers Association of California International Chamber Music Series, and Sunset Concert Series. As a founding member of Elgin trio, she has performed and taught around Texas as an Ensemble-in-Residence of Music Bus Tour. As a chamber musician, Arahata has also appeared on several radio broadcasts including k-Mozart 105.1FM, k-USC 91.5 FM, and Live from Hochstein WXXI-FM 91.5. Equally active as a pianist of large ensembles, she has served as a principal and associate pianist of orchestras and contemporary music ensembles at Eastman, Northwestern, Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and at University of Rochester for the Jazz Ensemble.
Dedicated to paving the new music path, Arahata actively performs contemporary and underrepresented music, improvises, and composes in a variety of styles and mediums, including frequent collaborations with dancers. Her musical vocabulary is diverse and wide-ranging, from historical custom of preluding, ornamentation, and concerti cadenza, to jazz, ballet and modern dance accompaniment, and studio orchestra arrangement. She has presented her research at the 2019 International Society for Improvised Music conference, 2021 NYSMTA/MTNA Symposium, 2021 Conero Piano Pedagogy Conference, and 2022 KU Asian Classical Music Initiatives Conference. She also composed for choreography by the University of Rochester dance faculty Mariah Steele for the dance show “S.E.E.D.,” and they have performed their new dance-composition collaboration “Time to Change” at the 2019 Rochester Fringe Festival. This fall, Arahata will return to the Rochester Fringe Festival with a vetaran dancer and choreographer Ruben Ornelas that features improvisatory silent film accompaniment and music from Japan. In the summer of 2022, Arahata launched a course “The Pianist’s Guide to Dance Accompaniment” at the Eastman School of Music.
Equally committed to education, Arahata has extensive experience teaching and coaching a variety of topics including piano, collaborative piano, music theory, and jazz ensemble. She has taught a wide range of ages and levels of students at Nazareth College, SUNY Geneseo, Alfred University, Hochstein School of Music, Northwestern University, University of Rochester, and the Eastman School of Music, where her teaching was recognized with the Excellence in Teaching Assistant Award. As a studio teaching assistant of Enrico Elisi, she also taught piano majors and taught a course on keyboard techniques and topography of fingering. In addition, Arahata served as a studio and class piano instructor at the Eastman Community Music School for five years and maintained a full studio for both collegiate and community divisions. She has also been a frequent piano faculty member at the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Michigan, and in master classes at various colleges and piano festivals in the US, including the Texas State International Piano Festival.
Arahata grew up in Los Angeles, Tokyo, Hong Kong. She holds degrees in Piano Performance at the Eastman School of Music (B.M., D.M.A.) and Northwestern University (M.M.) under the tutelage of Barry Snyder, Alan Chow, and Enrico Elisi. She also credits many mentors, including Dariusz Terefenko, Jean Barr, Manami Kawamura and Nobuyo Nishizaka. She also has a degree in Brain and Cognitive Sciences (B.S.) and Take Five Scholar Certificate on her research topic “Health and Community: Influence of Society on Individual Psyche” from the University of Rochester. She has studied in master classes with renowned pianists including Menahem Pressler, Robert McDonald, Meng-Chieh Liu, Marc Durand, Natalya Antonova, Nelita True, Boris Slutsky, Malcom Bilson, Alexander Kobrin, and Jose Ramos Mendez.
Currently, Arahata is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Chamber and Collaborative Music at the Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University Bloomington. She also serves on the Creative Music Making Committee of the National Conference of Keyboard Pedagogy and is an active master class teacher and competition adjudicator. Her multicultural upbringing has fostered her love of traveling and photography.