Age: 25
“I love the violin because each of its four strings have a very different kind of charm, which enables a ton of musical possibilities.”
Born in Tokyo, Tsukushi began playing the violin at the age of three: “My mother had learned the violin as her first hobby and wanted me to have the same kind of experience.” She graduated from the Music High School associated with the Faculty of Music of the Tokyo University of the Arts, where she went on to complete her bachelor’s degree. She then began her master’s degree at the Musikhochschule Lübeck in Germany, studying under Heime Müller.
In 2025, Tsukushi won First Prize at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Conservatory Competition in Germany. That same year, she was invited to perform Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto nº 1 in D major, op. 19, with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra at the 80th Prague Spring International Music Festival.
In 2024, she won First Prize at the Prague Spring International Music Competition, along with the City of Prague Prize, Czech Radio Prize, Bärenreiter Prize, and the Viktor Kalabis and Zuzana Růžičková Prize. Tsukushi received the Second Prize at the Tokyo Music Competition in 2020, as well as the Second Prize at the Japan Music Competition in 2018, along with the Audience Prize and the Kuroyanagi Prize.
As a soloist, she has performed with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Hofer Symphoniker (Germany), the Prague Philharmonia (Czech Republic), the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Tokyo City Philharmonic Orchestra, the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Geidai Philharmonia Orchestra (Japan). Actively engaged in chamber music, Tsukushi has been a member of the Karajan-Akademie of the Berliner Philharmoniker since January 2025.
Since January 2026, Tsukushi performs on the 1736 “Muntz” Guarneri del Gesù, generously on loan from the Sasakawa Music Foundation (formerly Nippon Music Foundation).
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