As a founding member of the award-winning Jalina Trio, Natsuki has won many accolades and international prizes, including a January 2006 rave review in Fanfare magazine.
The reviewer wrote of the trio's recording of the Mendelssohn and Brahms piano trios: "Never--and I mean never--have I heard either of these works played with such expressive nuance and exquisite, heartfelt sensitivity. When I am moved to tears of joy, I know I am hearing what music can and should be."Natsuki collaborates regularly with many fine chamber musicians in Northern California and appears frequently in concerts. Her recent appearances include concerto performances with Sacramento Philharmonic Orchestra and Michael Morgan (Beethoven Third), CSUS Orchestra and Leo Eylar (Rachmaninov Second), duo concerts with U.C. Davis Artist-in-Residence violinist Ben Kreith and with violinist Ben Dominitz in Riverside, as well as performances as a guest artist for the Chamber Music Alive! series in Sacramento and Rocklin. A recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship, Natsuki is a graduate of The Juilliard School, the Prague Academy of Music, and recently earned her doctorate from the University of Maryland. This year she served as a Visiting Professor of Piano at California State University, Sacramento. She began early studies with her mother and since then has studied with pianists Mark Richman, Martin Canin, Ferenc Rados, Anne Koscielny, Jan Panenka, Fumiko Ishikawa, and violist Tim Fredericksen. Her trio studied intensively at the Isaac Stern Carnegie Hall Chamber Music Workshop as well as at the Jerusalem Music Encounters.
Natsuki has performed throughout the U.S., Japan, Australia, Europe, and in Israel, including such venues as Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., and the Chicago Cultural Center. Her performances have been broadcast throughout the U.S., including National Public Radio, WQXR and WNYC in New York, and Yomiuri Television in Japan, Czech National Radio, ABC Radio in Australia, and “Good Morning Denmark” (Television). Critics have called her playing “powerful and convincing” (Washington Post), and “with an unusually organic breadth” (Berlingske Tidende, Copenhagen). Natsuki’s recent performance highlights include a tour of Italy performing Gershwin’s Concerto in F with Leo Eylar and the California Youth Symphony, and concerto performances of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, Liszt’s Totentanz, and Saint-Säens’ Carnival of the Animals with her husband Richard Cionco.
Natsuki teaches and performs at the Schlern International Music Festival in the Italian Alps during the summer.