Born in Sapporo, Atsuko Kawakami started learning the piano at the age of three when she entered the Yamaha Music School. In 1989 she won First Prize in the Junior Artist Category at Mainichi competition, and this was followed by prizes in the PTNA competition in 1990 and 1992. In 1999 she entered the Tokyo College of Music where she studied with Eiko Yoneda. She graduated with honours and a postgraduate diploma from the Royal Academy of Music, where she studied with Diana Ketler and also Clifford Benson in chamber music. She has also worked with Martino Tirimo at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.

In chamber music she has worked with a number of distinguished violists, cellists, flutists, clarinettists and singers, giving numerous concerts. In 2008 she was a finalist at the Khurau International Flute and Piano competition in Uelzan, Germany, and since then has performed with several different flautists in the UK, Germany and Japan.

In the last few years she has also performed extensively as a solo pianist, both in her native Japan and England, in a wide variety of repertoire from Scarlatti to Takemitsu. She took part in the Beethoven 32 Piano Sonatas project at St. Barnabas in Ealing, London, and since 2012 concerts have included recitals at Steinway Hall, Yamaha Chappell Hall, St. James's Piccadilly and Cheltenham Town Hall.