1st Prize of the George Enescu Competition for Mayumi Kanagawa

The Japanese-American violinist and Eisler alumna Mayumi Kanagawa has won the first prize of 15,000 euros at the George Enescu International Violin Competition and was also awarded the prize for the best interpretation of a George Enescu sonata. The competition took place in Bucharest in September 2024. Mayumi Kanagawa completed her master's and concert exam studies at the Eisler with Prof. Kolja Blacher.
She is a prizewinner of the 2019 Tchaikovsky Competition and the 2018 Long-Thibaud-Crespin Competition as well as first prizewinner of the Princess Astrid, Jascha Heifetz and Irving Klein Competitions. She has performed with the Mariinsky Orchestra, the Belgian National Orchestra, the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, among others, as well as repeatedly with the NHK Symphony Orchestra, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra and Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. She also recently made her debut 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 such as Yu Kosuge and the Lazarus String Quartet have taken her throughout Europe and Japan.
Her debut CD “Recital” with pianist Giuseppe Guarrera was released in Japan in February 2023 and was highly praised by critics. In 2024, she received the “Fresh Artist” award from Nippon Steel. She is currently an ambassador for El Sistema Japan's new “Ribbon” project, which provides instruments and music lessons to children in foster care. She has also been teaching at the University of the Arts in Bremen since October 2023.