Mr. Yamaguchi has received many graduate teaching assistantships, competition prizes, and scholarships including the Valerie Canady Foundation and H. J. Heinz Award, named after the victim of Pan Am Flight 103 in Lockerbie, Scotland. He has studied at the Manhattan School of Music and received a Doctor of Musical Arts in piano performance and literature from West Virginia University. Over a decade, he has maintained administrative and teaching positions at the Linton Chamber Music Series, where he has given personal assistance to countless concert artists such as Gil Shaham, Midori Goto, Yefim Bronfman, Truls Mørk, and members of Indianapolis Symphony and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestras, and at University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM), where he holds his candidacy for an Artist Diploma. He has also co-established and directed the Cincinnati Piano Institute, served on a Chamber Music America Forum committee, taught at West Virginia Wesleyan College, adjudicated the Music Teachers National Association Student Performance Competitions Southern Division, and presented master classes at the Detroit Suzuki Institute at Wayne State University and Center for the Arts Piano Odyssey and Exploration Camps in Wyoming, OH. In addition to being bilingual in English and Japanese, he speaks French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

Dr. Yamaguchi’s resourcefulness has led to teach traditional, Suzuki, jazz, secondary, and class piano. He has also worked as music theory and history instructor as well as chamber music and opera coach with singers who became winners of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. His piano students have been awarded numerous top prizes at the Miami University High School Piano Competition, Cincinnati Concerto Festival, CCM Preparatory Piano Concerto Competition, Kentucky Music Teachers Association Baldwin Junior High School Piano and Bluegrass Elementary Piano Competitions, Graves Piano Solo and Ensemble Competition, and Ohio Music Teachers Association Southwest District contests including the Tri-County Concerto Competition, Auditions Festival, and Ensemble Events. They have also received many scholarships from the Cincinnati Suzuki Piano Institute, Gino James DiMario Memorial Fund, and Dulcimer Festival. They consistently perform in guest master classes by concert pianists and pedagogues including David O. Cartledge, Fay Swadley Adams, Marvin Blickenstaff, Keiko Ota Alexander, Doris Pridonoff Lehnert, Jane Michelle Conda, Benita Tse-Leung, Daria Rabotakina, and Reiko-Christine Höhmann. They have also appeared as concerto soloist under the guidance of George Litterst at Music Teachers National Association National Convention, toured throughout Italy as part of the Accent X Chamber Music Program, and performed concerti with Amernet String Quartet and Seven Hills Sinfonietta as well as Dayton Philharmonic and Blue Ash / Montgomery Symphony Orchestras under the batons of Mark Newkirk, Neil Gittleman, and Michael Steph Chertock. They have studied at Indiana University–Bloomington Piano Academy and Kentucky Governor’s School for the Arts, performed in the American Music Scholarship Association World Piano Competition Bach-Beethoven-Brahms Club Outreach Program, Showcase Recitals at the Cincinnati Art Museum Fath Auditorium and Aronoff Center for the Performing Arts Fifth-Third Bank Theater, and appeared on Dayton Public Radio, West Chester Community Television, and Media Bridges. His notable students have included a rising-star composer, Kevin Beavers, whose work was commissioned by the Tanglewood Festival Orchestra and performed by Philadelphia Orchestra in Carnegie Hall after winning their centennial competition. (August 2010).