One of Japan's leading pianists, Noriko Ogawa amassed a strong following in Britain and continental Europe early in her career as well. She is a fixture of the BIS label's roster, specializing in French music, Russian music by Alexander Tcherepnin and others, and contemporary music.

Ogawa was born in Kawasaki in 1962. She should not be confused with the Japanese soprano Noriko Ogawa-Yatake. Ogawa studied at the Tokyo College of Music from 1977 to 1980 and then went on to the Juilliard School in New York from 1981 to 1985, rounding off her education with further lessons there from Benjamin Kaplan. At first, she appeared mostly in Japan, but after scoring a third-place finish in the major Leeds International Piano Competition in Britain in 1987, she began to attract fans there and decided to divide her time between Japan and the West. She is based in London. In Japan, she has been widely seen on the NHK and Nippon Television networks and has toured with the NHK Symphony Orchestra. She was signed to the BIS label and released her debut album there, Rain Tree, in 1996; the album featured music by composer Toru Takemitsu, a bold choice for a debut by a young unknown. Further albums for BIS in the late '90s featured Japanese piano music (Just for Me, 1997), Mussorgsky, Beethoven as arranged by Wagner, and Harald Sæverud. Her late '90s recording of Rachmaninov's Piano Nos. 2 and 3 with the Malmö Symphony Orchestra under Owain Hughes earned wide critical acclaim.

In addition to wide appearances across Japan, Ogawa has appeared with the BBC Philharmonic, the Hallé, the Royal Philharmonic, and many other major orchestras across Britain. Her European credits include appearances with the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, the Tapiola Orchestra in Finland, and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra in Sweden. She has often performed as part of duos with pianist Kathryn Stitt (with whom she has recorded music of Delius), clarinetist Michael Collins, and violinist Dong-Suk Kang. Ogawa has recorded complete cycles of the piano music of Debussy and of the piano concertos of Alexander Tcherepnin. She often commissions new music by such composers as Yoshihiro Kanno and Dai Fujikura, and she is on the faculty at London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She has recorded music of Satie on a historically appropriate 1890 Erard piano. In 2022, Ogawa released the album Xiaogang Ye: Sichuan Image on BIS; by that time, her recording catalog numbered well over 40 items. ~ James Manheim, Rovi