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Chiemi was born in Hawaii and lives with her family in Massachusetts. She has been writing songs for years, and you can access recordings of her current and new songs online. Her first publicly performed song was "Steps to Find" in 1988, when she conducted her high school class in a four-part harmony rendition of it at graduation. In college, she was graced with singing the part of the female angel in Haydn's "The Heavens Are Telling" with the University Chorale at the Vatican. While in graduate school, she sang in an acapella group called "The Wandr'ng Mistrials. Chiemi also released a CD “Living on 2 Coasts” in 2005. The title track was the theme song for the Asian American Lawyers Association of Massachusetts’ Legal Line Boston Neighborhood Network TV show, for which Chiemi was also a host. In addition, Chiemi has penned Chiemi's Corner, a music/events column in The Somerville News, and hosted the Somerville News’ Music/Poetry Series. Chiemi has also published articles on topics including cultural competence and unconscious bias, and is committed to promoting diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as expanding opportunities for women, minorities, and other affinity groups. For more information about Chiemi, go to www.ChiemiMusic.com.
"Karma Bank to Following by Listening" is Chiemi's first book. When the pandemic hit and she started working remotely for the first time, she integrated the music into her day with the commute time she was saving. She also started recording in her attic, posting the songs on SoundCloud, and sharing the songs with family and friends as a sort of “hi” and pick me up in the middle of a week, also posting with photos or art she received from friends. She didn’t start off meaning to write a book, but after doing this for a while, someone who had published a book and had been getting her song updates, suggested it. Her book contains those tunes, with the dates. She hopes that folks find beauty and joy in it, as it’s comprised of pieces from the last couple of years in an effort to share that. This collection also includes stories from the pandemic. For example, “Through Others’ Eyes” is a experience a friend relayed to Chiemi when he was working remotely at a local library near the home he grew up in. Another, “Mental Postcards Appearing,” posted with a painting by Chiemi's sister-in-law of one of her sons doing a handstand on the beach, is an experience from the Galapagos that Chiemi's father-in-law relayed to her.
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