Soprano Manami Hattori is originally from Kobe, Japan but she has been living and singing in the US for more than a decade. She has recently sung several leading roles in the US and Canada, including the title role in Madame Butterfly with Mercury Opera, Opera Canada, Opera Lancaster, and Amore Opera. Other recent performances include Nedda in Pagliacci with Utopia Opera, Suor Angelica in Suor Angelica, Micaela in Carmen, and Musetta in La Boheme with DiCapo Opera Theater. She also sang Musetta with National Lyric Opera in MA. Ms. Hattori is also featured on a DVD of Sheila Silver’s The Thief of Love, on Hummingbird Films, as Hira. Other operatic performances include Berta in The Barber of Seville with the Ashlawn Opera Festival.

On the concert stage, she has sung numerous oratorios as a soloist, including The Messiah, St Matthew Passion, The Creation, Elijah, Faure Requiem, Beethoven 9, Coral Fantasie, Mass in C Minor by Mozart, and several Bach Cantatas.

She was also the winner, out of more than 200 Japanese singers, of the International Auditions of The San Francisco Opera Center in Japan, where she won a spot in the coveted Merola Opera Program. While at Merola, she sang in productions of The Elixir of Love, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, and the Grand Finals Concert, where she received the Minton B. Evans Memorial Award. She is a very active musician in the NY area, where she regularly performs at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center with ASO and NY Philharmonic.

Ms. Hattori’s education includes a bachelor’s and graduate degree from KCUA, as well as a master’s degree from SUNY at Stony Brook.

Japanese born pianist, Marina Iwao has appeared on concert stages throughout Japan and the United States as a soloist and collaborative pianist. Performing regular recitals in Boston, New York, and Japan, Marina has performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Merkin Concert Hall, and Across Fukuoka Symphony Hall in Japan.  Marina was recently featured on WQXR’s McGraw Hill Young Artists Showcase with a cellist, Mina Kim, performing Lucas Foss’s Capriccio.

​Marina was named a collaborative piano fellow at Music Academy of the West in summer 2018 and 2019 and was a collaborative piano fellow at Bowdoin International Music Festival in 2017. In fall 2017, she performed the Schumann Piano Quintet with the Quatuor Debussy at Fukuoka Symphony Hall in Japan. 

​As a soloist, she was the first prize winner of the 2015 Bradshaw and Buono International Piano Competition and was invited to perform at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall.  Marina also won the Solo con Tutti concerto competition, performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 as a soloist with the Alliance Ohio Symphony Orchestra. She has also attended the Bowdoin International Music Festival in Maine as well as the International Keyboard Institute Festival in New York.  

​Marina holds a master’s degree in Collaborative Piano from the Juilliard School, studied with Jonathan Feldman. She also holds professionals Studies Diploma in Piano Performance from Mannes College the New School for Music, an undergraduate diploma from Longy School of Music as well as a Bachelor of Music from Emerson College.

​Currently based in New York City, she is a chamber music faculty and a staff pianist at The School for Strings and holds a staff pianist position at the Kaufman Music Center, the Juilliard School, and Mannes College the New School for Music preparatory division.