As it is my first experience, I was nervous at the beginning of the recording. Although, the play is almost as I thought to. I made it clear every day what to do before recording.

Ayako Uehara is the first woman and the first Japanese who was awarded the 1st prize at the International Tchaikovsky Music Competition. All the Japanese fans were excited at her big prize that her young but matured music by her outstanding concentration let her won under the heavy pressure.

"I think my performance was so good because I could with my 90% power at the final. Therefore, I never regret any result for it. Though, glad to hear I won the 1st prize." This is her first comment for the prize. About the atmosphere at the hall, "I feel easy to play in front of worm audience from the 1st stage to the final. Especially, on the final day, the hall was full with keen music fans."

Born in 1980. She started to play the piano at Yamaha music school taken by her mother hoping to make her love the music. After finishing the children's course and the junior special course, from 1990, she studied under the Yamaha Master Class, taking lessons by Fumiko Eguchi, Shinji Urakabe and Vera Gornostaeva. She reviews her life in the piano, "The good thing that I studied at the master class was I could study as I liked."

She is tied with Hamamatsu. In spring of 2000, she attended the 5th Hamamatsu International Piano Academy and was awarded the grand-prix prize at its competition on the final day. At the 4th Hamamatsu International Piano Competition in the autumn of the same year, she competed as the only one Japanese finalist with Alexander Gavrylyuk, Lim Dong-Hyek and other 3 contestants, and won the 2nd prize and the Best performer of the Japanese Work.

Now, she has based in Paris to start her activity as a pianist. For Japanese music fans, in November 2003, she came to Japan to play Mozart's piano concerto no.26 'Coronation' and other repertory of her with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra at their Japanese tour. In 2004, she'll play, with Bamberger Symphoniker, Rakhmaninov's 'Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini' in February, and in May, with Moscow Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra. Her activity in Japan has also been eagerly.

Another big news is her debut album coming. Before releasing it worldwide in Feb-2004, it will be released in advance in Japan in December 2003. Its title is 'Grand Sonata' from the series of works for piano by Tchaikovsky recorded.
After recording, she told, "I was nervous when it started, but owing to the excellent staffs, the play is almost as I thought to. As I used to consider what is the goal in advance, I made it clear every day what to do before recording." She must be a big artist.