Sayaka Shoji

Sayaka Shoji is a Japanese violinist born (in Tokyo) on January 30, 1983.  She gained considerable attention after winning the Paganini Violin Competition at age 16 (in 1999), the youngest competitor to ever do so and the first Japanese violinist to win the gold medal at that competition as well.  Although she spent her very early childhood in Italy, she began her violin studies in Japan, at age 5.  Among her first teachers (in Tokyo) were Kazuko Yatani and Reiko Kaminishi.  At 15, she moved to Germany for further study.  At 21, she graduated from the Advanced School for Music in Cologne where her main teacher was Zakhar Bron, although she also studied with Uto Ughi and Shlomo Mintz, among others.  (Bron’s other famous pupils have been Maxim Vengerov, Daniel Hope, Mayuko Kamio, and Vadim Repin.)  Needless to say, Shoji has performed with every major orchestra and most of the world’s illustrious conductors.  Her first appearance with the Berlin Philharmonic was at the Salzburg Easter Festival in 2002, playing Bruch’s first concerto.  Mariss Jansons was on the podium.  She first appeared with the New York Philharmonic on October 7, 2004 playing the first Prokofiev concerto under the baton of the late Lorin Maazel.  She was 21 years old.  Her repertoire includes three works seldom heard in concert: the Schumann, the Mendelssohn (in d minor), and the Max Reger concertos.  As far as I know, Shoji has already recorded the Reger concerto but not yet the Schumann or Mendelssohn’s first concerto.  Typical reviews from informed, respected, and experienced music critics read as follows:”…virtuosity of the highest order, …infused with poetry, …passionate, free, with an emotional intensity that many violinists will never achieve.”  Her spectacular rendition of the Brahms concerto can be seen and heard here.  In my opinion, the only performance which rivals it is the Heifetz rendition, and that, for me, is saying a lot.  Shoji mostly records for the Deutsche Grammophon label.  Volume 4 of her recording of all (10) Beethoven violin sonatas will be released in 2015.  Her violin is the Recamier Stradivarius from 1729.  Shoji’s photo (used here, slightly modified) is courtesy of Nikolaj Lund, well-known European photographer of classical musicians and classical music subjects.   

Mayuko Kamio

Mayuko Kamio is a Japanese violinist born (in Toyonaka, Osaka) on June 12, 1986.  She has been fortunate to have played with well-known, established artists from an early age.  When she was barely out of her teens, one of the critics for the New York Times described her as being “distinguished by her warmly luxurious, buttery tone and long, seamless phrasing.”  In Japan, she has played in every major venue and appeared with practically every orchestra.  She has also appeared in every major city in Europe.  In the U.S., her activity has been more limited, but no less successful.  She has also been (in 2003) the subject of a documentary by Josh Aronson, the director of the recent film about Polish violinist Bronislaw Huberman – Orchestra of Exiles.  The film is the last film in which Isaac Stern appears.  Kamio’s record labels are SONY-BMG and RCA.  In 1999, she won a major competition in England – the Menuhin competition.  She was 13 years old.  In 2000, she won a major competition in the U.S.  In 2004, Kamio took first prize in another competition in Monte Carlo.  In 2007, she won the best-known violin competition in the world – the Tchaikovsky.  She was 21 years old.  Kamio began to study violin when she was 4 years old.  Her teachers were Chikako Satoya and Chihiro Kudo, among others.  At age ten (1996), she made her debut with orchestra in Tokyo.  The concert was broadcast on TV and Charles Dutoit was on the podium.  Later on, in the U.S., beginning at age 14, she studied with Masao Kawasaki and Dorothy DeLay.  After that, she studied further in Europe with one of the best teachers currently still teaching – Zakhar Bron – at the Advanced School for Music and Theatre in Switzerland.  She received her artist’s diploma from that school but I know not in what year – it may have been 2007.  By then, she had already made her New York recital debut (in 2003.)  Kamio has played a 1727 (nameless, run-of-the-mill) Stradivarius and more recently, the Sennhauser Guarnerius (del Gesu) from 1735.  You can see and hear Kamio – at age 18 - perform the last section of the famous Mendelssohn concerto in this YouTube video.  In this other one, you can hear a PaganiniCaprice – number 13.