Aimi Kobayashi is a Japanese classically-trained pianist who has won several prizes and awards, both locally and internationally. Born in Yamaguchi in 1995, Kobayashi began to study piano when she was only three years old. In 2004, she made her local debut with the Kyushu Symphony Orchestra and started studying under the prestigious piano teacher Yuko Ninomiya. One year later, she was invited by the AADGT (the American Association for Development of the Gifted and Talented) to play at Carnegie Hall. She played at the legendary New York music venue once again in 2006 and performed Mozart’s “Piano Concerto No. 26 (Coronation)” with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra at Svetlanov Hall. In the following years, Kobayashi continued performing live and participating in music competitions, winning the first prize in the Asia-Pacific International Chopin Competition (Korea) in 2009. Debut!, her first album, came out in 2010 via EMI Japan. That same year, she performed in Poland with the Poznan Philharmonic Orchestra and received the special Chopin Passport, celebrating the musician’s 200th anniversary. Her next album, Passion, was recorded in Japan and was released in 2011. In 2013, she was accepted as a student at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she studied under pianist Meng-Chieh Liu.
