Currently, while being active with piano performance and as a chamber music player in Europe and the states mainly, and enjoy performing with major orchestras like the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Shigeo Neriki is also engaged in teaching young talents as a professor for piano department at Indiana Unversity where he was graduated. He also teaches at Souai University and Toho Gakuen as a guest professor.
Born in Tokyo in 1951 and started the piano at three. He attended the music class for children at Toho Gakuen when he was ten and won the first place at TBS/Mainichi Broadcasting sponsored competition, the Children's Music Competition, which led him to receive the Minister of Education Award.
After graduated from Gyousei Junior High School, he proceeded to the Music Course at Toho Gakuen Girls' High School where he studied with Masayasu Oshima. When he finished his education at Toho Gakuen he enrolled at Indiana University and studied under G.Shebeck. In 1976, he won the first place at Tucson Piano Competition and in 1978 took first prize at the Pittsburgh Piano Competition.
From 1976 down to the present, he tours around the world as the partner of maestro Janos Starker, the great cellist. He returns home temporarily on and after 1983 and plays as a soloist for Japanese major orchestras such as NHK Symphony Orchestra, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, etc. and also plays on TV/radio in large numbers.
The performances around Japan as a soloist with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Esa-Pekka Salonen in 1987 and with the Weiner Konzertfereign Chamber Orchester in 1995 had huge success. He received enthusiastic support from the public audience in June of 1997 for his play of a piano concerto by Bartok with Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France in Paris and in 1999, the performance as a substitute pianist(for the scheduled soloist's acute illness) with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.
In 1991, he formed a quartet named TOKYO Soloists '91 with a violinist, Hamao Fujiwara, and their vigorous performance generated buzz around the chamber music. The quartet was awarded for the astonishing performance with the 24th Suntory Music Award on March of 1993.
As for CDs, the work of D.Popper's recorded with Starker in 1990 was nominated for the Best Soloist Grammy Awrad and one from BMG Victor(Red Seal) in 1992 was highly praised by US Gramophone. Three solo albums have been released from Meistermusic and "Papillon(MM1030)" received the Best Recording Award selected by Cultural Affairs Agency in 1997.