Mayu Kishima is a Japanese violinist born (in Kobe,
Japan) on December 13, 1986. She is
known for having won one of the largest (if not the largest) monetary prizes in
a violin competition – the Isaac Stern Violin Competition in Shanghai awarded
her a first prize of $100,000 in 2016.
That was a competition that she almost decided not to enter until the
last minute. Kishima began her violin
studies in Tokyo at age 3 and has had quite a number of teachers during her
career, including Izumi Hayashi, Kazuyo Togami,
Toshiya Eto, Dorothy DeLay, Masao Kawasaki, Machi Oguri, Chihiro Kudo,
and Zakhar Bron (with whom she began studying at age 13.) She graduated from the Advanced School for
Music in Cologne in 2012. She was 26
years old. By then however, she had
already established herself as a concert artist, having begun her professional
career in the year 2000 at age 14. Kishima
made her first studio recording in 2003 with the NHK Symphony. Needless to say, she has played all over the
world with some of the finest orchestras and conductors. Among the violins she has played are a 1779
G.B. Guadagnini and a Stradivarius from 1700.
Here is one of many YouTube videos posted of her performances. Here is another.
