Akiko Gaffney

Akiko Gaffney studied piano under Reiko Kikuchi while attending the Tokyo School of Music. She received a Bachelor of Music degree and Artist Diploma from the Tokyo College of Music. She continued her musical education during graduate school at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music where she earned a Performance Diploma and studied piano solo with Michel Block (awarded the Rubinstein Award in Warsaw at the VI International Chopin Piano Competition in 1960) and chamber music with Rostislav Dubinsky (first violinist of the Borodin Quartet).

Akiko performed solo piano and collaboration with string instruments and chamber music in both Japan and Russia and during her time living in Georgia, Kansas, and currently in Folsom, California. While living in Vladivostok, Russia, in 1994-95, she also worked as a string accompanist at the Far Eastern Institute of Arts. She is also an accompanist for string instruments students.

More recently Akiko performed with cellist Jia-Mo Chen at the annual Sonora Bach Festival in 2018 and with Dr. Christine Choi and Jia-Mo Chen at the Westminster Presbyterian Church noon concert series in Sacramento and at the Harris Center for the Arts in Folsom.

Akiko’s students have received numerous top prizes at such competitions as MTNA Junior State Competition, Seattle international piano competition, Vancouver International Music Competition Finalist,Lancaster international Piano Festival, Chopin International Piano Competition in Asia, Steinway Junior Piano Competition, MTAC Sacramento Memorial Scholarship Audition for Piano Trio, Go for the Gold Competition, Sacramento Youth Symphony Premier Orchestra Soloist, and PYPA Piano Festival. Her students have studied under Professor Alexandre Moutouzkine, and participated in Professor Alexander Kobrin’s masterclass. They also study under scholarship with Professor John Kimura Parker at The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University.