Anna Kurasawa started to take piano lessons when she was four years old. Although it should not stay the only way of expressing art, the piano remained the most suitable instrument for her artistic expression. At the age of 13 she completed her first performance with orchestra playing the 26thPiano Concerto, the ‘Coronation Concerto’ by Mozart. Throughout her time in Japan she won numerous national and international awards.
After the first successful graduation from the Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo, Anna set out for Germany, where she took up postgraduate piano studies at the University of the Arts Berlin as a scholar of the Yamaha Music Foundation. With Prof. Fabio Bidini she subsequently studied at the Academy of Music Hanns EislerBerlin where she very successfully passed her diploma and directly was admitted to the renowned Konzertexamen path in which she also graduated with honors. In Paris she completed additional studies with Prof. Aquiles Delle Vigne, graduating with the ‘Diplôme Virtuosité’. During her studies abroad in Germany and France she was awarded with significant grants from the Government of Japan (the Ministry of Culture) as well as from the ‘ROHM Music Foundation’.
Selected celebrated moments in recent years were her 1stprize at the ‘Steinway Sponsorship Award’ Berlin, the 2ndprize at the ‘Second International Baltic Piano Competition’ in Gdańsk, the 4thprize together with the Audience Award at the ‘Fourth International Piano Competition, Panama’ as well as the third prize at the ’26thNew Acropolis International Competition’ in Madrid.
Anna Kurasawa has performed critically acclaimed recitals and concerts with several orchestras such as the Konzerthausorchester Berlin at the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Berliner Symphoniker at the Berliner Philharmonie, with the Polish Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Sopot and the Wrocław Chamber Orchestra, with the National Symphony Orchestra Panama, with the Machida Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra and the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra in Tokyo as well as a concert in line with the Salzburg Festival.
Most recently and as a most intriguing and by the audience highly celebrated moment, she has performed Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Berliner Symphoniker, conducted by Wolfgang Rögner, at the Berliner Philharmonie.
A debut CD with pieces from Brahms and Rachmaninov was produced by the label NAXOS Japan. The CD has been recommended by the music magazine “Art of Record Magazine” in Japan.
Anna Kurasawa resides as a solist and chamber musician in Berlin.