Hiromi Uehara started piano at six, on an upright originally bought for her older brother. Two years later her teacher, Noriko Hikida, introduced her to jazz through Oscar Peterson and Erroll Garner, and the connection was immediate. At fourteen she performed with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. At seventeen, she ran into Chick Corea by chance in Tokyo; he invited her to sit in with his band the following night, one of the pivotal moments she still points back to.

She enrolled at Berklee College of Music in Boston in 1999, where pianist Ahmad Jamal mentored her, and she signed to the label Telarc before graduating in 2003. Her debut, "Another Mind" (2003), didn't need years to find an audience: it went gold in Japan, more than 100,000 copies, and won the Recording Industry Association of Japan's Jazz Album of the Year. Bassist Anthony Jackson and guitarist David Fiuczynski both played on it, a pairing that would matter again years later.

From 2006 to 2008 she led Hiromi's Sonicbloom, with Fiuczynski, bassist Tony Grey, and drummer Martin Valihora, releasing "Time Control" (2007) and "Beyond Standard" (2008), a set of jazz standards reworked in a fusion style. In 2010 she appeared on "The Stanley Clarke Band," which won the Grammy for Best Contemporary Jazz Album at the 2011 ceremony, her first Grammy.

In 2011 she formed The Trio Project with Anthony Jackson, now on contrabass guitar, and drummer Simon Phillips. The trio's four studio albums climbed steadily on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart: "Voice" (2011) debuted at #16, "Move" (2012) reached #8, "Alive" (2014) reached #3, and "Spark" (2016), her tenth album as a leader, became her first to hit #1. Jackson passed away on October 19, 2025, at his home on Staten Island, from Parkinson's disease, at 73. Hiromi has said she is reviving the Trio Project name for a fall 2026 tour and recording, with Phillips returning on drums and bassist James Genus filling the chair Jackson held for five years.

Since 2023 she has led Hiromi's Sonicwonder, with bassist Hadrien Féraud, drummer Gene Coye, and (in some lineups) trumpeter Adam O'Farrill, releasing "Sonicwonderland" (2023) and "Out There," recorded in August 2024. The band's 2023 NPR Tiny Desk Concert became one of the most-viewed performances in that series. Alongside her main bands, she has kept a genuine, thirteen-year duo partnership with singer-pianist Akiko Yano, releasing three live albums together as Akiko Yano X Hiromi: "Get Together" (2011), "Ramen na Onnatachi" (2017), and "Step Into Paradise" (2024).

Beyond her own catalog, she composed the piano score for the 2023 anime film "Blue Giant" and performed at the opening ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics (held in 2021). She married Japanese fashion designer Mihara Yasuhiro in 2007. As of 2026 she remains an active touring artist, with European jazz festival dates booked for July.

Hiromi names Oscar Peterson and Erroll Garner as her earliest influences, discovered at eight years old, and Chick Corea as the mentor whose chance encounter reshaped her career at seventeen. Ahmad Jamal, who taught her at Berklee, is a direct formal influence as well. Her own playing blends jazz with progressive rock, classical technique, funk, and fusion, built around virtuosic technique and high-energy live performance. She has worked in registers as different as the amplified, contrabass-guitar-driven power trio sound of The Trio Project and the acoustic, conversational duo format of her Akiko Yano collaborations, a range that distinguishes her from artists who settle into one working format for a career.