An international pianist with ten released albums, Makiko Hirata is “Dr. Pianist” with a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Rice University, on a mission to promote the power of music to heal and unite us. She collaborates with neuroscientists to quantify the benefit of music and promote the power of music as an overlooked social resource to enhance our individual and social well-being through speaking engagements, workshops and writing. She is a US-Japan Leadership Program Fellow, a founding member of TEMPO: Music for Climate Action, and Coeuraj’s 2022 “Global Courage Fellow” which honors industry leaders around the world to focus on trust and bridge building in an era of polarization.

Dr. Hirata has given recitals, lectures, concerto performances and outreach concerts in the Americas and Eurasia with ensembles and artists, such as the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, the Pecs Hungarian Symphony Orchestra, conductor Leon Fleisher, and clarinetist David Krakauer. She has taught at New York University, Colburn Conservatory of Music, Rice University, and Lone Star College and has given master classes and lectures internationally. She is an instructor for the Stanford e-Wakayama Program for the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE), and a staff pianist at the Colburn Conservatory of Music.