Megumi Masaki is an innovative pianist, multimedia artist, educator, conductor and curator. For over thirty years, she has established an international reputation as a “virtuosic” (Musicworks), “most outstanding and mind-expanding” (Frettabladid) interpreter of new music with “electric and intimately sensitive musicianship” (BroadwayWorld Ireland). Her MUSIC4EYES+EARS research program and collaborations push boundaries of interactivity between sound, image, text and movement in multimedia works that reimagine the piano and pianist through new technologies, including hand-gesture-motion tracking to generate and control live-electronics and live-video, 3D visuals, keyboard controlled computer game, e-textile sensors and active infra-red tracking. Over 40 new works have been created for/together with Megumi and she has premiered over 90 works worldwide. Her latest recording of works written especially for her, MUSIC4EYES+EARS CD/Blu-Ray under the Centrediscs label, is hailed as “deliciously ambitious” (Musicworks), “simply breathtaking. That has principally to do with Masaki’s pianism … visionary performance” (WholeNote), and earned her a nomination for Classical Artist of the Year, Western Canadian Music Awards. As a Japanese-Canadian artist, her work also examines hybridity in Western and Asian music, acting on Truth and Reconciliation calls to action, and how political and environmental issues can intersect with music.

Megumi is featured at major festivals and venues around the world, including recently the Barbican’s Sound Unbound Festival (UK), Shanghai New Music Festival (CN), Dark Music Days Festival Reykjavik (IS), De Doelen (NL), IRCAM (Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music Paris (FR), Sonorities Festival Belfast (IE), Bangor BBC Music Festival (UK), Royal Academy of Music, Royal College of Music, Oxford University Magdalen Arts Week, St Andrews New Music Week, NYCEMF (USA), Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Winnipeg New Music Festival, National Art Gallery Ottawa, Ottawa Chamberfest and ISCM World Music Days Vancouver (CDN).

 Megumi’s long-standing collaborators include composers Nicole Lizée, Keith Hamel, T. Patrick Carrabré, Brent Lee, Bob Pritchard, Ken Steen, visual artists Sigi Torinus, Gene Gort, Chris McNamara, and choreographer Stephen Pier. Projects focus on augmenting the piano and it’s surrounding space as a visual as well as interactive musical instrument in live interactive performance. She is also a member of the interdisciplinary Slingshot-Kidõ Ensemble (Hartford CT) and the Noiseborder Ensemble (Windsor ON) that creates and performs multimedia works featuring a combination of acoustic and electronic instruments and live processing and mixing of sound and video. Her work has been awarded funding by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), Canada Council for the Arts, Manitoba Arts Council and FACTOR.

Devoted to the advancement of Manitoba composer S. C. Eckhardt-Gramatté's music, Megumi has performed and championed her works worldwide. Since the 1980s, Megumi often pairs these performances with the paintings of Walter Gramatté, as her fascination with the integration of image and sound emerged. She has recorded CDs of her piano works and the complete works for violin and piano duo with violinist Oleg Pokhanovski, and has published a critical performance edition of her Piano Caprices. Megumi also made her film debut as the music historical researcher and piano performer in “Appassionata: The Extraordinary Life and Works of Eckhardt-Gramatté” by Paula Kelly for CBC's Opening Night.

Megumi is Full Professor of piano and director of the New Music Ensemble and New Music Festival at Brandon University CDN, on faculty at the Casalmaggiore International Festival (CIF) Italy, Chetham's International Summer School and Festival Manchester UK and at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. She is regularly invited to give lectures and masterclasses at universities worldwide. Masaki is dedicated to increasing the effectiveness of training students for the rigors inherent in music careers. Her interdisciplinary research since 2001 has developed a holistic approach to teaching: “Training Pianists as Athletes for Optimal Performance,” resulting in invitations to present at international conferences and institutions, and in awards including the Deutsches Olympisches Institut (DOI) Willi-Daume Prize. Her success in teaching was recognized with the 2010 Brandon University Alumni Association's Award for Excellence in Teaching. Her teachers included Leonard Isaacs, Peter Katin, Ronald Turini, Jack Behrens and Kendall Taylor.

Megumi is the Artistic Director of the annual Eckhardt-Gramatté National Music Competition, unique in it’s focus on Canadian and contemporary music, she curates the annual Contemporary International Music Exchange (CIME) Concert Series CIF Italy, and the Brandon University New Music Festival. In collaboration with Barb Blind, Knowledge Keeper of BU’s Indigenous Peoples' Centre, Megumi founded the first annual BU Indigenous New Music Festival.

Megumi serves on the boards of the Canadian Music Centre Prairie Regional, Canadian New Music Network, and on JUNO, Manitoba Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council juries. She lives in Brandon Manitoba Canada.