Arts Centre Vooruit, Ghent, Belgium

Aki Takase was born in Osaka and grew up in Tokyo.
She already had piano- lessons when she was three years old. Piano was her main subject during her studies at the Tohogakuen University in Tokyo.

1979 she had a longer stay in the U.S.A. 1981 at the Jazz-festival in the philharmony of Berlin, the first celebrated performance with her trio featuring Takeo Moriyama and Nobuyoshi Ino in Germany. Numerous concerts and recordings with Dave Liebman, Sheila Jordan, Cecil McBee, Lester Bowie, Bob Moses, Joe Henderson, Niels Henning Orsted Pedersen and many more followed.

In the ninetees for years very successfull duos with the singer MARIA JOAO, and with the saxophonist DAVID MURRAY. Work in trio with REGGIE WORKMANN and RASHIED ALI in duet with ALEX von SCHLIPPENBACH, as well as occasional projects with the TOKI STRING ORCHESTA.

Actual is above all her co- operation with the bass- clarinettist RUDI MAHALL as well as with the lyricist YOKO TAWADA, each time a duo, and also her trio DEMPA (with Aleks Kolkowski and Tony Buck). Record- prizes of the UDJ Aki Takase got in 1990 (Play Ballads of Duke Ellington), 1991 (Shima Shoka), 1994 (Blue Monk), and 1998 (Duet for Eric Dolphy).

From 1997 to 1999 she worked as guest-lecturer at the university for music “Hanns Eisler ” in Berlin. 1998 she received the critic-prize of the “Berliner newspaper”. In the year 2001 her Solo-CD’S “Le Cahier du Bal “(Leo Records) was published as well as her “W.C.Handy-Project” with Rudi Mahall, Nils Wogram, Fred Frith and Paul Lovens under the name “St. Louis Blues” (Enja Records).

In 2004, her new CD Aki Takase plays Fats Waller was released with Enja. Coincident or not, Fats Waller happens to celebrate his 100th birthday. So see what happened to him! Aki received the Award of the German Critics for the best Jazz Album in 2004. In the same year she released her CD “Procreation” with Aki and the Good Boys, a Berlin-based band. The recording LOK 03 (Leo Rec) with Alex von Schlippenbach and DJ Illvibe was released in 2005, followed 2006 by her Duo CD with Lauren Newton “Spring in Bangkok” on Intakt Records.