Portland Chamber Orchestra: Mayumi Fujikawa Bio

Second prize winner of the 1970 Tchaikovsky Competition, Mayumi Fujikawa's earliest tuition was with her father and later at the Toho Conservatoire in Tokyo. She was awarded a scholarship of the Alex de Vries Foundation to continue her studies in Belgium. In 1968 and 1970 she also studied with Leonid Kogan in Nice, and in May 1970 won first prize in the Grand Prix Henri Vieuxtemps in Verviers, Belgium.
For many years Mayumi Fujikawa has lived in London, where she is a frequent guest with the London orchestras. It also provides an ideal base for her concert schedule which has taken her to almost every major European capital, either appearing with local orchestras or as the soloist with a visiting orchestra.
Ms Fujikawa's concert activities have taken her as far afield as South America, Australia, Israel, Asia and, of course, her native Japan. She has performed with most of the major American orchestras, including Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, Cleveland and Pittsburgh. In fact she made her New York debut with the Cleveland Orchestra under Lorin Maazel. Other eminent conductors with whom she has worked include Barenboim, Davis, Dutoit, Foster, Haitink, Kondrashin, Levine, Mehta, Ormandy, Previn, Sanderling, Rattle and Weller. In addition, she has been a guest at many of Europe's most prestigious international festivals, including Aldeburgh, Edinburgh and the London Proms.
Mayumi is particularly well known for her outstanding Mozart interpretations, both in concert and on record. She also recorded four of the concertos for BBC Television's "Mayumi Plays Mozart" series. Her other recordings include distinguished readings of the violin sonatas of FaurÀ) À and Prokofiev on ASV.