In September 2018, Maki Namekawa released the piano version of Philip Glass’s soundtrack “MISHIMA – A Life in Four Chapters” that depicts the life and death of the Japanese writer and political activist Yukio Mishima. The arrangement was especially crafted for her by Glass’s long-term musical director Michael Riesman and features her crystal-clear technique. The recording was awarded the prestigious “Pasticcio Preis” by Austrian national radio.
In 2019 Philip Glass composed his first Piano Sonata especially for Maki Namekawa. She premiered the Sonata on July 4th, 2019 at Piano Festival Ruhr in Germany in the presence of the composer.
Maki Namekawa studied piano at Kunitachi Conservatory in Tokyo with Mikio Ikezawa and Henriette Puig-Roget. In 1994 she won the Leonid Kreutzer Prize. In 1995 she continued her studies with Werner Genuit and Kaya Han at Musikhochschule Karlsruhe, where she completed her diploma as a soloist with special distinction. She went on to perfect her artistry in Classical-Romantic repertoire with Edith Picht-Axenfeld, in contemporary music with Pierre-Laurent Aimard at Musikhochschule Köln, György Kurtág, Stefan Litwin, and Florent Boffard.