Mariko Morita

Mariko Morita is Assistant Adjunct Professor of Organ and Collaborative Piano at UNI, where she teaches Music Appreciation and serves as a collaborative pianist. She began organ studies at the age of five and grew up performing on the stage. Earning BM and MM degrees in Organ Performance from Seton Hill and Emory Universities, she was honored to be the first Japanese to receive a Doctor of Music degree in Organ Performance from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Her teachers include Tokuko Yoshida, Edgar Highberger, Timothy Albrecht, Larry Smith, Marilyn Keiser and Christopher Young.  

Dr. Morita earned performer’s certificates at the International Summer Music Academy in Leipzig, Germany, a co-sponsored program of the Juilliard School and Hochschule für Musik und Theatre “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy,” performing at J. S. Bach’s St. Thomas Church.  For the year 2004-05, she was the Music Intern at West End United Methodist Church, Nashville, Tennessee, playing an important role in their distinguished music program.  During her tenure 2006-08 as a Visiting Professor of Music at Texas A&M International University, Laredo, she initiated the Organ Recital Series, performing recitals of various kinds from solo to chamber music and concerti with the Laredo Philharmonic Orchestra on the Sharkey-Corrigan organ. 

Mariko Morita has performed numerous recitals in the US, Germany, and Japan.  Her recent appearances at Cornell University have included performances on the new GOArt Schnitger organ and with the renowned University Chorus and Glee Club.  Her on-going research about the first Japanese Organist, Eisaburo Kioka, has been published by the Japan Organ Society, and she is to present a related paper at the National Convention of the American Guild of Organists in Boston this summer.  She is also on the faculty of Pipe Organ Encounter, the AGO’s national summer organ academy for young organists.  Dr. Morita has most recently served as the Assistant Music Director & Organist at St. Anne Church in Rochester, NY (2009-11) and Music Director at Christ Episcopal Church in Corning, NY (2011-2013).  Her performances can be heard on American Public Media’s nationally syndicated radio show Pipedreams.  She is represented by Crimson Concert Artists.