An accomplished Japanese-born pianist, Rika Zayasu has had success in working as a solo artist, a devotee of the orchestra repertoire, and a collaborator at the keyboard in chamber music performing with both singers and instrumentalists. Her broad spectrum of repertoire includes nearly 30 piano concerti, complete piano sonatas by Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Brahms, and Scriabin, complete piano works by Debussy and Takemitsu, and numerous compositions by living composers, spanning the 17th centuries until the 21st centuries. Rika Zayasu plays with wonderful grace and precision, she is also the recipient of the Kao Foundation of Arts and Sciences Award for her research on the 26 concerti by the Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu.

Focusing on Scriabin’s piano works in the 2017 – 2018 season, she will release Scriabin Complete Piano Sonatas, her second double album from the British record label Claudio Records, which features the 10 piano sonatas composed throughout Scriabin’s 43 years of life. Zayasu gives over 15 concerts focusing on Scriabin and the works by the selected composers corresponding his music, including, Chopin, Prokofiev, and Takemitsu, in the U.S., Europe and Asia.

2018 – 2019 season contains more new projects. She tours Europe and North Africa in the winter, a combination of recitals and orchestral performances, and gives the world and European premieres of a new work by Christian Mason, followed by Claudio Records recording sessions for a 2020 release album, which includes Christian Mason and various works for violin and piano.

Rika Zayasu is also the founder and artistic director of Wednesday Afternoons Music (www.wednesdayafternoonsmusic.co.uk), a non-profit music organisation, and Tudeley Festival of Chamber Music and Voice (www.tudeleychambermusicfestival.co.uk), an international summer music festival held annually in Kent, UK.

Having spent her formative years in France, Rika Zayasu studied under Michel Béroff and Denis Pascal in Paris before moving to London to work with Maria Curcio, the legendary pupil of Artur Schnabel. She is a holder of MMus (Piano, GSMD) and MPhil (Supervised by Prof. Roger Marsh, University of York). She has performed extensively in Europe, in the United States, and Japan, at the concert venues including London’s Wigmore Hall, Barbican Centre, Paris’s Salle Gaveau and Salle Cortot, and Tokyo’s Oji Hall and Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall.

She currently lives in Kent, UK.



"Zayasu's masterful performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major..., was an emotinal and dramatic work that left concertgoers stunned by the explosion of sound. Zayasu's grace and power was recognized and rewarded as the audience gave a standing ovation that brought her out no less than three times. Brava!"
- The Chieftain, USA


"She drew Debussy’s internal landscape with great ease by using both glittering tones and colours in soft pastels...The iridescent radiance of Poissons d’or was beautifully expressed."

-Taro Araki, Ongaku Gendai          



"An impressive record...The playing of this gifted artist is of high quality throughout, the Claudio Q-Lab Sound being stunningly lifelike."

-Martin Morris, Musical Opinion Magazine


"Rika Zayasu is a fine and sensitive musician. I had pleasure teaching her, and wish her the best for the future."

-Michel Béroff