ARTIST: CELLO

Michiaki Ueno

As the winner of the 75th Geneva International Music Competition in 2021, Michiaki Ueno has proven to be one of the most promising artists on the classical music scene.

Born in Paraguay in 1995, Michiaki started his cello studies at the age of five. At the age of eleven, he gave his first concerto performance at the prestigious Suntory Hall, playing the Lalo Cello Concerto. This later led to his success in becoming the first ever Japanese winner of the International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians in 2009. A year later, he won first prize in the Romanian International Music Competition along with special prizes. He won first prize in the International Johannes Brahms Competition in 2014. His most recent award was first prize in the Geneva International Music Competition in 2021 along with three special awards, including the Young Audience Prize.

As a soloist, Michiaki has performed with numerous orchestras such as the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, Lahti Symphony Orchestra, Gyeonggi Philharmonic Orchestra, KBS Symphony Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, and New Japan Philharmonic among many others. As a chamber musician, he has shared the platform with artists including Jean-Guihen Queyras and Daniel Sepec.

Michiaki has received musical education from the late Shoichi Baba, Iñaki Etxepare, and Hakuro Mohri. He also studied with Pieter Wispelwey at the Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf and Gary Hoffman at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium.

Michiaki has received numerous awards such as the Foundation for Youth Award (2011) and the Honourable Award (2015) both from the Iwatani Tokiko Foundation, the “Aoyama Music Prize” (2017), the Idemitsu Music Award (2022), the Hotel Okura Music Award (2023) and the Hideo Saito Memorial Award (2023) as a promising rising star. In 2021, he was conferred a commendation from the Commissioner of the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan. He was generously supported by foundations such as the Meiji Yasuda Cultural Foundation, Rohm Music Foundation, Ezoe Memorial Recruit Foundation.

Michiaki plays a P.A. Testore cello on loan from the Munetsugu Collection, using a F. Tourte bow on loan from the Sumino Taishi Collection.