Hiromi

Blue Note Jazz Club

Tue, Jun 30 @ 8:00 PM
Tue, Jun 30 @ 10:30 PM
Wed, Jul 1 @ 8:00 PM
(additional performances)

FEATURING:
Hiromi, piano

Hiromi Uehara first mesmerized the jazz community with her 2003 Telarc debut, Another Mind. The buzz started by her first album spread all the way back to her native Japan, where Another Mind shipped gold (100,000 units) and received the Recording Industry Association of Japan's (RIAJ) Jazz Album of the Year Award. The keyboardist/ composer's second release, Brain, won the Horizon Award at the 2004 Surround Music Awards, Swing Journal's New Star Award, Jazz Life's Gold Album, HMV Japan's Best Japanese Jazz Album, and the Japan Music Pen Club's Japanese Artist Award (the JMPC is a classical/jazz journalists club). Brain was also named Album of the Year in Swing Journal's 2005 Readers Poll. In 2006, Hiromi won Best Jazz Act at the Boston Music Awards and the Guinness Jazz Festival's Rising Star Award. She also claimed Jazzman of the Year, Pianist of the Year and Album of the Year in Swing Journal Japan's Readers Poll for her 2006 release, Spiral. Hiromi continues her winning streak with the 2007 release of Time Control and in 2008, Beyond Standard. Both releases feature Hiromi's super group, Sonic Bloom. In February 2009, Hiromi and Chick Corea released a CD of duets titled "Duet."

Born in Shizuoka, Japan, in 1979, Hiromi took her first piano lessons at age six. She learned from her earliest teacher to tap into the intuitive as well as the technical aspects of music.

"Her energy was always so high, and she was so emotional," Hiromi says of her first piano teacher. "When she wanted me to play with a certain kind of dynamics, she wouldn't say it with technical terms. If the piece was something passionate, she would say, 'Play red.' Or if it was something mellow, she would say, 'Play blue.' I could really play from my heart that way, and not just from my ears."

Hiromi took that intuitive approach a step further when she enrolled in the Yamaha School of Music less then a year after her first piano lessons. By age 12, she was performing in public, sometimes with very high-profile orchestras. "When I was 14, I went to Czechoslovakia and played with the Czech Philharmonic," she says. "That was a great experience, to play with such a professional orchestra."

Further into her teens, her tastes expanded to include jazz as well as classical music. A chance meeting with Chick Corea when she was 17 led to a performance with the well-known jazz pianist the very next day.

"It was in Tokyo," Hiromi recalls. "He was doing something at Yamaha, and I was visiting Tokyo at the time to take some lessons. I talked to some teachers and said that I really wanted to see him. I sat down with him, and he said 'Play something.' So I played something, and then he said, 'Can you improvise?' I told him I could, and we did some two-piano improvisations. Then he asked me if I was free the next day. I told him I was, and he said, 'Well, I have a concert tomorrow. Why don't you come?' So I went there, and he called my name at the end of the conce

Click here to purchase tickets at the club's website

ticket prices:	$20.00 - $30.00
venue:	Blue Note Jazz Club
venue address:	131 W. 3rd St, New York, NY 10012
venue bio:	"The Blue Note, one of the world�s finest jazz clubs, located in the heart of New York�s Greenwich Village is synonymous not only with great jazz in an intimate setting, but also critically-acclaimed food, top-notch service and a really cool gift shop."
members' rating of venue:	N/R
directions:	Blue Note New York is located on West 3rd street, between 6th Avenue (Avenue Of The Americas) and MacDougal street. The Subway lines that stop right next to our doors are the A, E, C, F, Q, B, and D.
full schedule:	Tue, Jun 30 @ 8:00 PM Tue, Jun 30 @ 10:30 PM Wed, Jul 1 @ 8:00 PM Wed, Jul 1 @ 10:30 PM Thu, Jul 2 @ 8:00 PM Thu, Jul 2 @ 10:30 PM Fri, Jul 3 @ 8:00 PM Fri, Jul 3 @ 10:30 PM Sat, Jul 4 @ 8:00 PM Sat, Jul 4 @ 10:30 PM Sun, Jul 5 @ 8:00 PM Sun, Jul 5 @ 10:30 PM