Faculty Bio: Asami Hagiwara

Dr. Asami Hagiwara has been praised for her “tone-color palette of great warmth and nuanced richness” (Fuldaer Zeitung). Recent appearances include concerts in Austria, Brazil, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, and the U.S.A. She has been invited to perform in music festivals including the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, the Grieg Festival, Joutseno Art Summer, the Liszt-Garrison Festival, Mänttä Music Festival, and the PIANALE International Academy. She is currently Assistant Professor of Piano at SUNY Onondaga Community College (Syracuse, NY).

In addition to her wide range of performing repertoire from Baroque to contemporary music, Hagiwara specializes in works of Nordic composers, especially those of Edvard Grieg and Jean Sibelius. Her doctoral document, Guide to the Published Solo Piano Music of Jean Sibelius, provides an overview of Sibelius’s rarely performed 115 piano works. As an American-Scandinavian Foundation research fellow, she spent a year at the Sibelius Academy (Helsinki, Finland), which deepened her understanding of the Nordic sound and composers.

As a guest teacher, Hagiwara has been invited to music festivals including Encontro Internacional de Pianistas de Piracicaba (Piracicaba, Brazil), Encontro Internacional de Pianistas do Vale do Aço (Timóteo, Brazil), Northshore Summer Music Experience (Duluth, MN), the University of Iowa’s Youth Summer Camp (Iowa City, IA), and the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp (Twin Lake, Michigan). She was the former director of UMD Piano Day, an annual community outreach event, and the Northshore Summer Music Experience Piano Division. In addition, she frequently serves on competition and festival jury panels for organizations such as Edward Grieg Society, MTNA, NFMC, NPTG, CNYAMT, and Thursday Musical.

Committed to teaching excellence, Hagiwara’s collegiate and pre-college students have been frequent winners of competitions and scholarship awards. Several of her students have continued on to receive music degrees and pursued careers in music fields. Hagiwara’s prior teaching positions include Assistant Professor of Piano and Chair of the Piano Area at the University of Minnesota Duluth, Lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, and Coordinator of the University of Iowa’s Pre-College Piano Conservatory.

Hagiwara has been a recipient of American-Scandinavian Foundation Fellowship, Clara Rolland Award, Thomas J. Smith Award, and Gertraude Weber Gassman Award. Her former piano teachers include Erik T. Tawaststjerna at the Sibelius Academy, Ksenia Nosikova at the University of Iowa, William Heiles at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Marialena Fernandes at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, and Emilio del Rosario at the Music Institute of Chicago.