Pic Hiromi… Photo credit Shane Rozario
The combination of a jazz pianist and a string quartet is by no means new. One thinks for example of Chick Corea’s album My Spanish Heart which Australian pianist Joe Chindamo says introduced him to “the exquisiteness of string quartet writing…” Also before Corea, the Modern Jazz Quartet were pioneers in this genre. Still on October 23, 2025, Hiromi’s collaboration with New York’s PUBLIQuartet to open the Sydney International Women’s Jazz Festival (SIWJF) was something else.
The Japanese pianist and composer Hiromi Uehara, mostly known mononymouslyas Hiromi, is not a new artist. She is now 46 and has been around for a long time, even though her profile in Australia has been low. She first came to notice internationally as long ago as 2011 when she won a Grammy for her work on the album The Stanley Clarke Band, which won Best Contemporary Jazz Album in that year.
She’s known for blending a number of genres in her compositions and playing, including stride, post-bop, progressive rock, classical and fusion. Throughout her career, she’s released 12 acclaimed albums. In 2021, she performed at the opening ceremony of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which were postponed to 2021 owing to the Covid pandemic.
Clues to her uniqueness can be gauged by the adjectives writers have come up with to describe her. In The New York Times she was described as “one of jazz piano’s most brazenly virtuosic players.” Note the word “brazenly”. In her work The Silver Lining Suite, recorded with another string quartet (not the PUBLIQuartet), her talent is described as “otherworldly”; her interaction with the strings is said to demonstrate her “unbridled energy and impeccable precision”.
This performance at CRH reproduced Hiromi’s The Silver Lining Suite, with her on piano, plus the members of the New York string quartet PUBLIQuartet. The latter included Jannina Norpoth (violin), Fung Chern Hwei (violin), Nick Revel (viola) and Hamilton Berry (cello). Composed during Covid, the four movements of the suite are entitled Isolation, The Unknown, Drifters, and Fortitude.
Left to right : Hiromi, Jannina Norpoth, Fung Chern Hwei, Nick Revel, Hamilton Berry… Photo credit Shane Rozario
More on Hiromi below, but first some brief comments on the very impressive half-hour curtain raiser from the Freyja Garbett Quartet. Other than Garbett on keyboards (and spoken text), the group included Sandy Evans (tenor saxophone), Max Alduca (double bass), and Miles Thomas (drums). They played excerpts from Garbett’s suite Music From The Waves, a major work which results from Garbett’s current project combining her two passions, surfing and music.
Without going into too much detail here – perhaps that will be appropriate when a foreshadowed album on ABC Jazz appears in early 2026 – this involves Garbett’s gathering motion data while surfing ocean waves and transferring that data into MIDI (musical instrument digital interface). In the process she was inspired to develop her suite of compositions, drawing heavily from what she describes as “the motion data sonifications and [her] experiences along the way”. Apparently this has deepened her connection to the coastal environment on the South Coast of NSW where she grew up, and enabled her to express herself more authentically.
I found Garbett’s music exceedingly attractive, and it certainly was played very beautifully by all the members of the quartet. The sensitive drumming of Thomas, who often played at a whisper, was remarkable. Also, it was a revelation and a joy to hear again the sound of Sandy Evans’ tenor, courtesy of the excellent sound reproduction possible in the CRH. We don’t often hear her unique sound so clearly. Needless to say, this short set was highly appreciated by a very warm audience in the CRH.
Returning to the Hiromi performance which began at 8pm, several elements in the music were notable from the first note: the unmitigated technical brilliance of all five musicians, and the breathtaking articulation of lightning passages in unison. This was exciting music undoubtedly, and one wondered how long it would go on for. Could such energy be sustained indefinitely, or would it flag? Ultimately it went on for an hour-and-a-half but, in my view, it never became tiresome, nor did it seem relentless, as so often happens with musicians whose talent relies on overwhelming technical brilliance.
Of course opinions will always divide. I know at least one jazz writer who cannot listen to the great American pianist Art Tatum, as he finds Tatum’s unrelenting brilliance tiresome. A friend of mine whose opinions I value, dismissed Hiromi as “a show pony”. Still, the perceptive friend who accompanied me to the concert emailed me the following morning with categorical thoughts:
“Last night’s concert was sensational. It certainly took the classical form of Piano Quintet well beyond the ‘classics’ and into the 21st Century. Hiromi is a virtuoso. Her technique is astonishing. Stylistically she is so erudite that she can incorporate anything from a baroque pedal point to Debussy, to gypsy music and animation styles, to Fats Waller, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett and more in one tune – and quote individual lines. The acknowledgment of ALL and EVERYTHING – dealt out with an impish smile – felt very New York and ZEN. I find that often the heavy emotions can dominate what some have to say, so for me, the best thing was the element of play and joy transcending this.”
Yes, those elements of joy and playfulness in Hiromi’s music, somewhat unusual in jazz, where musicians often take themselves too seriously, were the qualities that most people remarked on. It seemed that her mastery of the keyboard was such that she was able to pull off technical feats that escape even the greatest pianists, eg establishing a riff in the left hand, and countering it with completely independent and convincing improvisations in the right hand. I was struck by the passages throughout which were taken at breakneck speed in four, with the cellist Berry adopting the role of the double bass. I don’t think I have heard before such unremitting brilliance, and I’m glad to have heard it.
At one stage I was wondering: could Hiromi play a ballad? She answered my imagined query effectively with a virtuosic version of Paul McCartney’s Blackbird. But it was not simply a treatment of that composition alone. During her improvisation she quoted from a variety of familiar tunes, incorporating them seamlessly into the mosaic she created. We heard elements of stride piano, quotes from tunes such as All The Things You Are, and a cavalcade of sounds too numerous to decipher. Sitting next to me was a friend who has a more comprehensive knowledge of related genres than I. She says that “in Blackbird, there was a definite quote from Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.” That’s how comprehensive Hiromi’s talent is.
At one stage Hiromi took a short break, whereupon the string quartet played a piece which is not part of The Silver Lining Suite. Called Hip Hop Etude in C sharp minor, it was a memorable highlight.
There was a standing ovation approaching 10.30 pm, whereupon a solo piano encore was played by Hiromi. Perhaps the most impressive highlight of the performance then took place, during the romp which closed the concert. Each player in the string quartet came to the front of the stage in turn, with a solo offering. The sight of each player out from behind their music stands and close to the audience was, for some reason, strangely moving. This started with the viola player Revel, a very tall man, who was given a riotous reception by a totally won-over audience. It seemed that every player from the quartet who henceforth came to the front of the stage, took the music a little further out in terms of excitement, so that when the final offering came from the first violinist Norpoth, her solo was a memorable coup de grace.
The sound for this performance was phenomenal, and my congratulations to the CRH sound technicians who did a wonderful job. There have been very impressive openings to the Sydney International Women’s Jazz Festivals in the past – I remember with fondness the 2019 festival, which was opened by the legendary First Nations singer Wilma Reading – but, in 2025, I could not have imagined a more thrilling opening to the current festival. A large audience was absolutely floored by Hiromi’s fearless performance, and went home satisfied they had witnessed an unforgettable gig.
The festival is presented by SIMA, and the sponsors are The City of Sydney, Creative Australia, Create NSW, Sound NSW and The Anthony & Sharon Lee Foundation.
This performance took place on October 23, 2025, at City Recital Hall, 2 Angel Place, Sydney, featuring the Japanese pianist and composer Hiromi and the American string quartet PUBLIQuartet. Opening the concert was the Freyja Garbett Quartet including Garbett (keyboards & spoken text), Sandy Evans (tenor saxophone), Max Alduca (double bass), and Miles Thomas (drums).
