Boston-based pianist Miki Sawada is bringing her “Gather Hear Tour” to Skowhegan. She is set to perform at 6 p.m. Thursday at The SPACE on the River at 181 Water St. The free concert is presented by Main Street Skowhegan. Sawada’s goal is to travel to all 50 states. Nick Bruskewitz photo

SKOWHEGAN — Boston-based pianist Miki Sawada has played concert venues across North America, Europe and Asia. But for the past seven years, she has packed her piano into a van and taken it across the United States, with the goal of bringing people together.

Her “Gather Hear Tour” has reached thousands of people at more than 80 free concerts, Sawada said. The goal is to travel to all 50 states, while inspiring human connection across socioeconomic and political divides.

Sawada began the Maine iteration of the tour last week. She is set to play a free concert, presented by Main Street Skowhegan, at 6 p.m. Thursday at The SPACE on the River at 181 Water St.

“It really started with the 2016 (presidential) election, when I realized the reality of the country and how little I knew and how I was living in pretty much a bubble,” Sawada said Monday during a telephone call from Dover-Foxcroft, where she played Sunday.

“I also was thinking about how classical music tends to live in a bubble. Combining both of those things and taking in what was happening in America at that point, I came up with this idea.”

Sawada, who has degrees in piano from the Yale School of Music, the Eastman School of Music and Northwestern University, went first to Alaska in 2017.

Since then, she has traveled with her piano — as part of the “Gather Hear Tour” — to West Virginia, Massachusetts, Utah, Louisiana and Alabama. Maine is the tour’s seventh state.

When planning her tours, Sawada said she focuses on rural areas that might not offer many opportunities to hear classical music played live.

The week-and-a-half Maine tour began Thursday with three concerts in the Portland area, in partnership with the arts and culture organization Portland Ovations, including one at the Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland.

Boston-based pianist Miki Sawada is bringing her “Gather Hear Tour” to Skowhegan. She is set to perform at 6 p.m. Thursday at The SPACE on the River at 181 Water St. The free concert is presented by Main Street Skowhegan. Sawada’s goal is to travel to all 50 states. Andrew Rizzardi photo

Sawada then went to Dover-Foxcroft, and is scheduled to play this week in Presque Isle and Calais, before coming Skowhegan on Thursday. The tour is expected to end with two concerts in Lewiston.

“I try to focus on the lowest-income counties and places where, as far as I can tell, there is not too much classical music,” Sawada said. “I know the Maine coast is pretty saturated with the arts and classical music, so I wanted to kind of get away from Portland as soon as I was done there.”

The Maine tour features the program “Maine the Beautiful,” with music inspired by the state’s woods and the ocean, and music that Sawada says offers commentary on America. Some of the works she performs are by Huang Ruo, Amy Beach, Frederic Chopin, Alexander Scriabin, Jean Sibelius, William Grant Still and Maine-based composer Conrad Winslow, according to Sawada.

Sawada plays the music on a “hybrid” piano, which is partly digital and does not have strings. The instrument is more convenient for travel, since it is more compact and need not be tuned, Sawada said.

So far, Sawada said Maine has exceeded her expectations, with well-attended concerts.

Those who do not know much about classical music, or even those who have tried listening to it and do not like it, are encouraged to attend.

“It’s meant to be an experience where everyone is welcome,” Sawada said.