Ms. Sachiko Isihara

​Now in her 26th year as Executive Director of the Suzuki School of Newton, Sachiko Isihara is a pianist earning her Bachelor’s in Piano Performance at New England Conservatory and a Master’s in Piano Performance at Juilliard. She has been a member of SAA since 1984. Her Suzuki training includes being a Kenkyusei in Matsumoto in 1993 and a long term apprenticeship with Colette Daltier in France. Sachiko has completed European Suzuki Level 5. In 2008, she became an SAA Suzuki Piano Teacher Trainer. In 2009 Sachiko became the director of Suzuki By the Green Piano Institute held in Newton, MA. Recently selected by the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women as one of their Commonwealth Heroines of 2020, she was recognized for her leadership and volunteerism for the betterment of her community. In 2018, 2019, and 2022 Sachiko received the Steinway Top Teacher award, and in 2018 also received the Milestone Award from the National Guild for Community Arts Education. Sachiko leads a team of twenty Suzuki teachers at the Suzuki School of Newton, was responsible for implementing a full-day, arts integrated Suzuki Preschool in 2009, and is a frequent clinician at the annual MA Suzuki Festival. She regularly holds and sponsors teacher training and student workshops and collaborative Suzuki events in the Massachusetts area. She recruits and nurtures new faculty to follow the journey of teacher training and appreciates our globally changing world as a moment of opportunity.

In 2023, Sachiko was appointed to the Suzuki Training Committee as an advisory committee for the Suzuki Teacher Development Program of the Suzuki Association of the Americas encompassing North, Center and South Americas. In April 2024, she was invited by Congressman Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts to attend the Joint Meeting of Congress in the US Capitol to hear the address by His Excellency Kishida Fumio, the Prime Minister of Japan.