Born in Miyazaki, Japan, Satomi Saeki was introduced to Japanese traditional music by her father, a player and maker of the shakuhachiplayer. She studied koto (horizontal harp), sangen/shamisen (three-stringed Japanese lute) and juushichigen (17-stringed horizontal harp) with Shizu Watanabe, Namie Sano and Takeshi Nakai. Saeki graduated from the Tokyo Geijutsu Daigaku (National Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music) and the 37th Japanese Traditional Music School of NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation). Since moving to Victoria, British Columbia in 1994, Saeki has been teaching and performing koto music at various educational institutes and cultural events in North America.