Kaori Saeki

Kaori Saeki was born in Japan and began playing the piano at the age of four.

She studied law at university in Japan, focusing on human rights, legal studies, folklore, war, criminology, world history, and international politics.

After graduation, she worked as an office employee in Tokyo. In 2010, she had the opportunity to attend a seminar in Tokyo given by Professor Stephan Möller. She was subsequently accepted into his class at the Prayner Conservatory in Vienna and moved there in 2012. She studied solo piano with Professor Stephan Möller and chamber music with Professor Konstantin Weitz. After only two years of study, she completed her artistic diploma with honors (Ausgezeichnet).

In 2014, she made her debut at the Golden Key Festival at Carnegie Hall in New York, performing Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz No. 1 as a soloist and Beethoven’s Große Fuge Op. 134 in a piano duo with Professor Möller.

In addition to her solo work, she has gained extensive experience as a chamber musician and accompanist, having performed with vocalists and instrumentalists playing violin, viola, cello, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, saxophone, horn, trumpet, trombone, and tuba in numerous concerts and diploma examinations. Her repertoire covers the major standard works for a wide range of instruments.

Kaori Saeki is currently one of the busiest and most versatile musicians based in Vienna. In 2018, she launched the “Beethoven–Czerny–Liszt Project” to promote the music of Carl Czerny, highlighting his identity as a true Viennese composer, born and died in Vienna. She regularly performed Czerny’s piano sonatas at the Gesellschaft für Musiktheater and at the Floridsdorf Museum in Vienna.

In 2021, she was invited to the Beethoven Festival in Brake, Germany, organized by Professor Kurt Seibert, where she performed an evening recital of Czerny’s sonatas and nocturnes. That same year, she performed all of Beethoven’s violin sonatas over the course of three days with violinist Jonathan Cano in Vienna. In 2022, she performed all eleven of Czerny’s piano sonatas in a four-day marathon concert series at the Gesellschaft für Musiktheater in Vienna, and again in 2023 at Salon Freiraum in Salzburg.

Together with violinist Jonathan Cano and countertenor/composer Rubén Berroeta, she founded the Ensemble JoKaRu, with which she performs regularly. Since 2020, JoKaRu has been consistently invited by the Polish cultural organization Fundacja Wspólna Przestrzeń, founded and directed by Mariola Fanselow and Cezary Fanselow, to give concerts and masterclasses. In 2024, the ensemble embarked on a concert tour to five cities in Poland and held workshops for children, sponsored by Polish national television and radio. That same year, they performed at the 39th Alfonso Ortiz Tirado Festival in Sonora, Mexico, presenting a program that included contemporary works by Rubén Berroeta.

In 2023, Kaori Saeki performed George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with the wind orchestra “Musikverein Lenzing Werkskapelle” under the baton of conductor Manfred Röhrer. She also appeared as celesta player with Cappella Istropolitana, conducted by Vasilis Tsiatsianis, at the Great Hall of the Wiener Musikverein. Additionally, she was invited by Cerabino Pianoforti in Milan, Italy, to perform in concert with mezzo-soprano Yulia Savrasova at San Maurizio al Monastero Maggiore.

Since 2024, she has served as a jury member for the International Rosario Marciano Piano Competition, organized by Professor Stephan Möller and presided over by Professor Kurt Seibert.