One of Japan's most-honored pianists of her generation, Aimi Kobayashi was a veteran of the stage by her early teens. She was the youngest-ever winner of the PTNA Piano Competition (she won that contest four times in a row between 2001 and 2004) and of the National Music Competition of Japan in 2005. In 2011, Kobayashi issued an album of Beethoven piano sonatas. She placed third in the Gina Bachauer International Young Artists Competition in 2012 and made the final round in the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 2015. Kobayashi issued an album of solo piano works by Chopin and Liszt in 2018 and returned in 2021 with a recording of Chopin's preludes.