Hiromi Uehara, known professionally as Hiromi, is a Japanese jazz composer and pianist. She is known for her virtuosic technique, energetic live performances and blending of musical genres such as stride, post-bop, progressive rock, classical and fusion in her compositions.
Uehara was born in Hamamatsu, Japan. She started learning piano at the age of six and was introduced to jazz by her piano teacher Noriko Hikida when she was eight. At age 14, she played with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. When she was 17 years old, she met Chick Corea by chance in Tokyo and was invited to play with him at his concert the next day. After being a jingle writer for a few years for Japanese companies such as Nissan, she enrolled to study at Berkless College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. There, she was mentored by Ahmad Jamal and had already signed with jazz label Telarc before her graduation.
She debuted in 2003 with her album, Another Mind, and has toured and appeared in jazz festivals regularly since then. She formed an initial trio with bassist Mitch Cohn and drummer Dave DiCenso, and in 2004, she recorded her second album Brain with fellow Berklee alumni bassist Tony Grey and drummer Martin Valihora, as well as bassist Anthony Jackson, who was a guest on three tracks. She continued to record and tour with Grey and Valihora until 2009. On October 19, 2006, the trio added guitarist David Fiuczynski in a performance at the Jazz Factory in Louisville, Kentucky, to form Hiromi’s Sonicbloom. Fiuczynski is also featured in the albums Time Control (2007) and Beyond Standard (2008). Due to Fiuczynski’s teaching commitments at Berklee, guitarist John Shannon performed with the group when Fiuczynski was unavailable.
Drummer Mauricio Zottarelli joined Hiromi’s Sonicbloom for the 2009 tour. Uehara also performed at the Newport Jazz Festival in August 2009, and at the Paris Olympia in Paris in April 2010, and toured in the summer of 2010 with the Stanley Clarke Band.
Anthony Jackson, who was previously a guest on the Brain album, joined Uehara along with drummer Simon Phillips as part of the Trio Project for the 2011 album Voice. The Trio Project went on to make the albums Move (2012), Alive (2014), and Spark (2016). Spark reached the number one position on the US Billboard Jazz Albums chart for the week of April 23, 2016. In 2021 she performed at the opening ceremony of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
