Emi Gilbert began studying classical piano at the age of three. Her early focus was the Classical Era, especially W.A. Mozart. She won the first prize at a Yamaha youth piano competition with a Mozart Piano Sonata when she was 12 years old. In addition to piano music, she was constantly trying out new instruments during her school days, such as flute, alto saxophone, etc. While in high school, she became fascinated by the power of human voice, and started training her voice by joining a choir. There, she studied The Mass works/Suite music by composers in the later Renaissance and Baroque Era such as Palestrina and Monteverdi. At the same time, she worked on the pronunciation of foreign languages such as Latin, German, French, Norwegian, etc. since those were used as the lyrics in the music she was studying.
In 1996, she entered Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (English Major in Department of Foreign Languages.) Her interest in languages was so strong that she chose to focus on linguistics, especially phonetics and English phonology in the later years of her University days. Around the same time, she became interested in jazz music.
In 2000, Emi joined Sony Music Entertainment. Using her ability in both English and Japanese, she worked for the International Music Department as a marketing coordinator. There she learned the basics of the music business, while building her own network among talented musicians all over the world.
In 2005, she retired from her work, and married L.A. based guitarist Paul Gilbert. She relocated herself to Los Angeles to start her new life with him. In 2006, she participated in her husband’s project of recording his first solo instrumental album "Get Out of My Yard”. In 2007, she officially started touring with him as a keyboard player. Warming up with a show at the Viper Room on the Sunset Strip, she continued with a Japan tour, a G3 Tour with Joe Satriani in the US, a European tour, and a South American tour. In 2008, she contributed to Paul's second solo instrumental album "Silence Followed by A Deafening Roar" as a co-producer, and by playing Hammond organ and piano. To showcase his new album, she performed at the House of Blues of various locations in the US, did another tour of Japan, and an extensive tour of Europe.
In 2012 she joined Paul’s album project “Vibrato” by playing the keyboards. It was a great experience for her, since the band recorded everything live in the same room. And she toured the world extensively with the new album. So far, she has been on stage more than 300 times.
In 2018, she filled in for two shows for Paul’s “Behold Electric Guitar” US tour: Texas, and Toronto, Canada.
In 2019, she started a new live jazz and bossa project called “Os Pássaros”. She sings and plays the piano on this project.
Currently, she lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and a son.