Naoko Akutagawa was born in Hiroshima in 1974. She studied piano there from the age of three, and in Tokyo with Masayasu Oshima. At sixteen she switched to the harpsichord, and studied privately with Chiyoko Arita before entering her class at the Tohogakuen College of Music. Her chamber music instructor there was Masahiro Arita. She took her soloist diploma in 1997. In that year she entered the Musikhochschule in Würzburg, Germany, as a student of Glen Wilson, ending her studies with the Meisterklasse diploma in 2001. She had been appointed assistant professor in 1999, a position in which she continues to the present. She pursues a flourishing career in chamber music and as a soloist in Germany, recently performing Mozart concertos on the fortepiano to great critical acclaim. Her recordings have been broadcast by Japanese state radio and European stations. Naoko Akutagawa made her début recording for Naxos in 2005 with the complete works for harpsichord by Gaspard le Roux. She was a prize-winner of the 2006 Bonporti Competition in Rovereto, Italy, and in 2007 was guest musical staff at the Netherlands Opera, Amsterdam.

Discography