Kayo Iwama

Pianist Kayo Iwama has concertized extensively with singers such as Joshua Blue, Stephanie Blythe, Kendra Colton, William Hite, Rufus Müller, Christòpheren Nomura, Lucy Shelton, and Dawn Upshaw throughout North America, Europe and Japan. She has performed in venues including the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center, Weill Recital Hall, Boston’s Jordan Hall, Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, the Kennedy Center, Tokyo’s Yamaha Hall and the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. The Washington Post has called her a pianist “with unusual skill and sensitivity to the music and the singer” and the Boston Globe has praised her “virtuoso accompaniment … super-saturated with gorgeous colors”. 

Iwama is the associate director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard Conservatory, where she works in tandem with the artistic director, the renowned mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe. In addition, she has given master classes and served as guest faculty at academic institutions in Asia and the United States, and has been invited to adjudicate at major competitions such as Young Concert Artists. She has been a faculty member at Songfest, as well as a participant of the Ravinia, Ojai, Token Creek and the Aldeburgh music festivals among others. From 1995-2016 she taught at the Tanglewood Music Center, where she was also appointed to the position of coordinator of the Vocal Studies Program. This past year also included a residency with the Cincinnati Song Institute as the fellowship coach, and the Perform Opera in Italy program in Mercatello sul Metauro. A former resident of the Boston area, she was a frequent performer on WGBH radio, and performed with such groups as the Handel and Haydn Society and Emmanuel Music, and was pianist and music director of the critically acclaimed Cantata Singers Chamber Series. She has held positions at the Hartt School of Music, the New England Conservatory of Music and the Boston Conservatory, and is currently a faculty member of the Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts and the Chamber Music Program at the Juilliard School. For the past two seasons she has also served on the faculty of the Lindemann Young Artist Program at the Metropolitan Opera.  

This biography was provided courtesy of the artist and has not been not edited or reviewed by the BSO.