Tokyo Music Competition
HIRAI Miu
Violin
Born in: Saitama, Japan
2nd place, String Section, The 22nd Tokyo Music Competition 2024
Musical Study Experiences
March 2019 Graduated from Study Abroad (SA) course, Tokyo Joshi Gakuin High School
March 2023 Graduated from the Department of Instrumental Music with a major in Violin, the Faculty of Music, Tokyo University of the Arts
2024 2nd-year master’s student at the Graduate School of Music with a major in Violin, Tokyo University of the Arts
Teachers
Previously, studied violin under UEMURA Taro and HORI Masafumi. Studied chamber music under MATSUBARA Katsuya, YAMASAKI Takako, HAGIWARA Mami, KIKUCHI Tomoya, and OIKE Ami.
Musical Careers
| 2022 | Excellence Award, the 15th Music Academy in Miyazaki Performed in the Rising Stars Concert at the 27th Miyazaki International Music Festival 1st Place and Concerto Award, Violin Category, General Public Division, the 38th Kanagawa Classical Music Competition Passed the 2nd Instrument Lending Audition of the YAMADA Music Foundation |
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| 2023 | Won Doseikai Prize when graduating from Tokyo University of the Arts Finalist, String Section, the 21st Tokyo Music Competition |
| 2024 | Received the 5th TAU Scholarship Selected as a trainee for the 3rd Class of the Verus Academy 3rd Place and Special Jury Award, Chamber Music Category (String Quartet), the 13th Akiyoshidai Music Competition 2nd Place, String Section, the 22nd Tokyo Music Competition |
Further Activities
Hirai holds solo recitals twice a year. She has experience performing as a soloist with the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, the New Japan Philharmonic, the Kanagawa Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Geidai Philharmonia Orchestra. In 2024, she attended the summer masterclass at Chigiana Music Academy in Italy. In her student years, she participated in various concerts featuring students at Tokyo University of the Arts, including Thursday Concerts, Morning Concerts at the Sogakudo Concert Hall, the 49th and 50th Chamber Music Regular Concerts, the Doseikai Novice Concert, the Early Education Project in Okayama. She also performed as the concertmaster at the 65th Tokyo Geidai Symphony Orchestra Regular Concert.
Repertoire
Hirai’s repertoire of concertos includes Prokofiev’s No.1, as well as those by Korngold, Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn, and Mozart. Also, she has strong feeling towards virtuoso pieces by composers such as Paganini, Wieniawski, Ysaÿe, and Milstein. She has worked on sonatas by Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, Debussy. Lately, she has been working on new pieces, and studying widely from Baroque to contemporary pieces. She also works hard on her quartet activities as “Quartet Acero” and is continuing to broaden her repertoire of chamber music.