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Dr. Haruko Kataoka
Dr. Haruko Kataoka was born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1927. She began the study of piano at the age of six with Yoshimune Hirata. After her graduation from Tokyo's Sacred Heart Girls' High School in 1945, she continued her piano studies with Haruko Fujita.
Dr. Kataoka moved to Matsumoto in 1955 to serve as accompanist in Dr. Shinichi Suzuki's Talent Education Institute, where she began to research piano pedagogy according to Dr. Suzuki's method of teaching violin. Since that time, she has served as director of piano at the Talent Education Institute. She continues to train teachers at the Institute from Japan and around the world, as well as to teach her own students.

Dr. Kataoka has been teaching abroad every year since 1972, when she attended the Suzuki Institute at Stevens Point, Wisconsin, as a teacher trainer. Dr. Kataoka has taught at universities in the United States, Canada, England, Finland and Australia.

In 1986, Dr. Kataoka received the Matsumoto City Arts and Culture Award, and in 1990, she was granted an honorary doctorate in music from the University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky, United States.