Japanese violinist Kyota Kakiuchi made his debut at Wigmore Hall at the age of 15, following his First Prize at the12th Arthur Grumiaux International Violin Competition while studying at the Yehudi Menuhin School.

Currently based in Berlin, he has appeared at some of the world’s most prestigious concert venues across Europe and Asia and collaborated with artists including Hibiki Tamura, Rintaro Akamatsu, Asuto Kitamura, Aya Nagatomi, Noah Bendix-Balgley and Andrei Ioniță, as well as members of the Scharoun Ensemble of the Berliner Philharmoniker. In his hometown of Gifu, he founded the GIFU・KANO International Music Festival in 2023, where he performed works including Dvořák’s String Quartet “American” together with members of the Berliner Philharmoniker. He has also appeared at numerous festivals across Europe, including the Zermatt Music Festival & Academy, Crescendo Festival, Lauttasaari Music Festival, AIMA Music Festival and Gümüşlük Music Festival. Praised by Yutaka Sado for his “relentless pursuit of excellence,” Kyota has appeared with him as a soloist at the Hyogo Performing Arts Center and on tour across eastern Japan.
 

In 2020, following the release of a recording of Wieniawski’s “Caprice for Two Violins, Op. 18 No. 2” on the album Digital Salamanca with his sister, violinist Emiri Kakiuchi, they began performing together as a violin duo. The duo made its debut at Munetsugu Hall the following year and has since performed extensively across Japan and Europe as EMIRI & KYOTA Violin DUO. As a member of QUADPHONICS 2x2 Violins, Kyota has appeared on the ensemble’s Japan tours in 2024 and 2026, as well as at its UK debut at the Menuhin Hall, receiving critical acclaim for its innovative concert format that transcends the boundaries of classical music. Since 2025, he has been the second violinist of the Varyon Quartet.

At the age of 19, Kyota became the youngest-ever concertmaster of the Symphonie-Orchester der UdK Berlin. Since the same year, he has appeared in concerts and tours with the Karajan-Akademie der Berliner Philharmoniker. In 2026, he joined the Orchesterakademie of the Staatskapelle Berlin, currently under the musical direction of Christian Thielemann. In the same year, he appeared in the concert celebrating Zubin Mehta’s 90th birthday, attended by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Highlights of Kyota’s 2026/27 season include a second tour of Japan with the Varyon Quartet, a third Japan tour with QUADPHONICS, and an Asia tour with the Staatskapelle Berlin.

Born in Tokyo in 2003, Kyota studied with Prof. Takaya Urakawa before moving to the UK at the age of ten to attend the Yehudi Menuhin School on a UK Government scholarship, where he studied with Prof. Akiko Ono and Tereza Privratska. He is currently studying at the Universität der Künste Berlin with Prof. Nora Chastain and Victoria Wong, and, as Varyon Quartet, with Prof. Vineta Sareika and Prof. Gregor Sigl of the Artemis Quartet, while continuing his studies in Japan with Keiko Urushihara. He has participated in masterclasses with distinguished musicians including Alina Ibragimova, Rodney Friend, Marianne Piketty, Koichiro Harada, Fuminori Shinozaki and Ryo Terakado, as well as members of the Tokyo, Casals, Armida, Kuss and Endellion Quartets. He is a laureate of the Villars Music Academy 2026, where he worked with Rainer Honeck, Vineta Sareika and Simone Bernardini.

Kyota is a laureate of numerous international competitions, including First Prize at the 12th Arthur Grumiaux International Violin Competition and the Christa Bach-Marshall Foundation Award at the XXIII International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition, among others. As a member of the Varyon Quartet, he has also won First Prize and the Audience Prize at the 5th Munetsugu Hall String Quartet Competition, as well as First Prize at the 10th Alice-Samter Stiftung Kammermusikwettbewerb.

Since 2025, Kyota has been a scholarship recipient of the Yamaha Music Foundation and Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now Berlin e.V., and since 2026, of the Villa Musica Rheinland-Pfalz Foundation. He currently performs on a fine old Italian violin by Giuseppe Guadagnini (c.1780) and a French bow by Dominique Peccatte (c.1865).