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2024.09.19
Ms. Mayumi Kanagawa wins 1st Prize at the 2024 George Enescu International Competition
Ms. Mayumi Kanagawa, violinist and recipient of Nippon Music Foundation's Stradivarius 1725 Violin "Wilhelmj" since September 2022, has been awarded 1st Prize and Best Interpretation of a George Enescu Sonata at the 2024 George Enescu International Competition Violin Section held in Bucharest, Romania in September 2024.
Presented by Artexim
Mayumi Kanagawa
Japanese-American violinist Mayumi Kanagawa began the violin at age 4. Her musical education has been shaped by Kolja Blacher at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin, as well as by Yoshiko Nakura, Masao Kawasaki, and Robert Lipsett.
She is a prizewinner at the 2019 Tchaikovsky Competition and 2018 Long-Thibaud Crespin competition as well as First Prize winner of the Princess Astrid, Jascha Heifetz and Irving Klein competitions. She has performed with many orchestras including the Mariinsky Orchestra, Belgian National Orchestra, Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, among others.
The 2023-24 season highlights include return engagements with the NHK Symphony Orchestra, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra and Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestras as well as debuts with the Gunma Symphony Orchestra and Macao Orchestra with Charles Dutoit, Marc Piollet, Nodoka Okisawa, and Kazuihro Koizumi. Recital and chamber music concerts with colleagues including Yu Kosuge and the Lazarus String Quartet bring her across Europe and Japan.
Her debut CD "Recital" with pianist Giuseppe Guarrera was released in Japan in February 2023 to wide critical acclaim, and in 2024 she received the "Fresh Artist" award from Nippon Steel. An advocate for communication through music making, she is currently an ambassador for El Sistema Japan's new "Ribbon" project, bringing instruments and music education to children in the foster care system. Since October 2023 she is also teaching at the Hochschule für Künste in Bremen.
