Newton Piano Summit - Kevin Harris & Hidemi Akaiwa

The Newton Piano Summit, now in its 7th year, presents free public concerts from world-class artists the first 2 weekends in May from 1-3 pm.

This year’s performers will include Kevin Harris and Hidemi Akaiwa on the 6th, Cuban-born pianist Harold Charon and Venezuelan Leo Blanco on May 7th, Gospel master Dennis Montgomery III and pianist Utar Artun on the 13th, and Andrus Madsen and Sylvia Berry on the 14th.

Hidemi Akaiwa

Fasten your seatbelts because you are likely to have never heard music like what keyboardist and composer Hidemi Akaiwa performs. Her passion is to create a new art form infusing the tenets of Japanese Zen with the sounds of jazz and microtonal contemporary classical music.

At the age of 30, she shifted from a successful corporate career to focus on jazz music. She received a full scholarship to Berklee, where she took part in the college’s Global Jazz Institute, Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, Planet MicroJam Institute, and Interdisciplinary Arts Institute. These experiences have allowed her to study with world-class musicians including Danilo Pérez, Kenny Werner, Terri Lyne Carrington, Kris Davis, Billy Childs, David Fiuczynski, and many others.

Kevin Harris 

Having participated in the very first incarnation of the Summit, we are so pleased to have Kevin Harris and the creative volcano that he is, grace our stage again. Expect a different and unique multimedia experience with spoken word, poetry, and recorded and creative electronic sounds.

A distinctive trait of New York/Boston-based jazz pianist Kevin Harris is his desire to constantly grow, evolve, improve, and advance. His interest to interweave traditional and contemporary music styles, visual arts, electronic media, science, and language, is what distinguishes his music and what renders his performances unique experiences, meant to activate the audience’s senses and personal curiosity.

Previous performers have included an amazing and impressive list of talents: Helen Sung, Harold Charon, Dominique Eade, Yoko Miwa, Daniela Schacter, Dayramir Gonzalez, Wes Wirth, Mark Copeland, George Russell Jr., Jimin Park, Joh Camara, Tim Ray, Yuki Monolog Kanesaka, David ‘Fuze’ Fiuczynski. Leo Genovese, Laszlo Gardony, John Lockwood, Max Lumbarsky, Debo Ray, Bruce Forman, Warren Wolf, Alan Rowe, and more!

Complete information and videos about this great free series is at http://newtonpianosummit.org

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