“A Formidable Musician, Able To Draw On Huge Reserves Of Stamina And The Unflinching Equal Of Anything Thrown At Her” (Gramophone)
“Shoji’s unembellished and direct, partly soft-grained, and partly determined bowing, was immaculately integrated with the Philharmonia.”
(5*, Young Jin-Hur, Bachtrack, November 2019)
Sayaka Shoji has become internationally recognised for her unique artistic versatility and detailed approach to her chosen repertoire. Her remarkable insight into musical languages comes from her mix of European and Japanese backgrounds. Born in Tokyo, Shoji moved to Siena, Italy when she was three. She studied at Accademia Musicale Chigiana and Cologne’s Musikhochschule and made her European debut with Lucerne Festival Strings and Rudolf Baumgartner at the Lucerne Festival and then at the Musikverein, Vienna at the age of fourteen.
Since winning first prize at the Paganini Competition in 1999, Sayaka Shoji has been supported by leading conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Lorin Maazel, Semyon Bychkov, Mariss Jansons and Yuri Temirkanov to name a few. She has also worked with renowned orchestras including Berliner Philharmoniker, Wiener Symphoniker, hr-Sinfonieorchester, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, The Mariinsky Orchestra, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, NHK Symphony Orchestra and Czech PhilharmonicOrchestra, among others.
Highlights of the 2024/25 season include her concerts with San Francisco Symphony with Esa-Pekka Salonen, The Cleveland Orchestra with Kahchun Wong, Evergreen Symphony Orchestra with Jaap van Zweden, Tonkünstler-Orchester, and Stuttgarter Kammerorchester. Shoji will also return to hr-Sinfonieorchester for a Japanese tour with their Chief Conductor, Alain Altinoglu.
As an active chamber musician, in addition to 15 years of collaboration with Gianluca Cascioli, she has a long-standing collaboration with many artists including Modigliani Quartet, Benjamin Grosvenor, Beatrice Rana, Kian Soltani, Steven Isserlis, Stephen Kovacevich and Vikingur Olafsson. Shoji regularly appears in recital in venues such as Philharmonie de Paris, Wigmore Hall, Suntory Hall, and Hamburg Laeiszhalle.
Alongside her usual concert activities, Shoji has created an experimental visual-music project,Synesthesia in 2007, and exposed oil-paintings and video-art works. Her first video work (Shostakovich Prelude collaboration with P.Frament) was chosen in a group expositionAu-delà de mes rêves in 2014 among the most renown artists such as Y.Kusama, S.Calle and R.Longo. Shoji has also collaborated with Tadao Ando, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and Saburo Teshigawara in numerous occasions.
A prolific recording artist, Shoji has released eleven albums on Deutsche Grammophon, including Prokofiev, Sibelius and Beethoven’s Violin Concertos with St.Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Yuri Temirkanov, and previous recordings include a recital album with Menahem Presseler. In February 2025, she releases a second volume of Mozart album with longtime collaborator Gianluca Casiocli, following her previous album of complete Beethoven Sonatas for Piano and Violin.
Shoji won the Mainichi Art Award in 2016, one of Japan’s most prestigious awards, presented to those who have had a significant influence on the arts. In 2012, Nikkei Business named her one of the 100 Most Influential People for Japan in the Future.
Sayaka Shoji plays a Stradivarius‘Recamier’ c.1729 kindly loaned to her by Ueno Fine Chemicals Industry Ltd.
