Chie Nagai was born in Chiba, Japan and spend her childhood playing piano and oboe, befor studying classical song at the renowed Musashino Music Academy. She then worked as a music teacher in
Tokyo before relocating to Germany and completing another degree as a soprano as well as one in elementary music pedagogy. She has since worked on numerous projects, from baroque music to
romantic song to contemporary composition and free improvisation.
She plays in regular duets with pianist Ayako Ito and Joshua Weitzel.
She has premiered works of Yoshinao Kobayashi, Gabriel Fischer and Hyunbae Lee and has further worked with Christian Wolff, Charlotte Seither, Gertrud Weyhofen and other composers. In improvisation she has worked with Eddie Prévost, Nicola Hein, Martin Speicher, Ove Volquartz, Ulrike Lentz, Lui Lerroy, Yuki Maegaki, Jorge Bachmann, Jaroba, Rieko Okuda, Antti Virtarantta, Hada Benedito, Sam Andreae, Ed Lucas, Daniel Kordik, Ken Ikeda, James O`Sullivan, Liping Ting, Dawang Huang, Shih Yang Lee and many others.