Sayaka SHOJI, violin

Since winning First Prize at the 1999 Paganini Competition - the first Japanese and youngest artist to do so - Shoji is regularly invited to perform on some the world's most prestigious stages. Recent highlights include performances at the Salzburg Easter Festival with the Berlin Philharmonic and Mariss Jansons, the London Symphony Orchestra's 100th Anniversary Asia tour with Sir Colin Davis, highly successful tours of Europe and South America with the WDR Symphony Orchestra under Bychkov, and of Japan with the New York Philharmonic and Lorin Maazel.

Highlights of the 2007/08 season included a return to the London Symphony Orchestra with Temirkanov, her debut with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Paavo J?rvi and a re-invitation to the Salle Pleyel to perform the Stravinsky Concerto with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Myung-Whun Chung. The current season sees her performing in Milan with both La Scala Philharmonic and the Verdi Orchestra, on tour to Japan with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic and Temirkanov, and she will play both the Ligeti Concerto and Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 1 with the NHK Symphony and Jonathan Nott.

In addition to a busy schedule of concerto performances, Shoji appears regularly as a recitalist and chamber musician alongside colleagues such as Vadim Repin, Mikhail Pletnev, Lang Lang and Yefim Bronfman.

Sayaka Shoji performs on the "Joachim" Stradivarius (1715), generously provided by the Nippon Music Festival.