Ready for Carnegie Hall!

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Kenichiro Kojima, a master's student in Prof. Stepan Simonyan's piano class, has won first prize at the International Piano Competition in Manhattan. A success with reverberations: he will make his debut at Carnegie Hall in July 2019!

Kenichiro Kojimaborn in Tokyo in 1991, is the winner of numerous national and international competitions: he won 3rd prize at the Pianale Piano Academy 2012 and 3rd prize at the Elise Meyer Competition 2013. He is also a semi-finalist at the Sendai International Music Competition 2013, where he received the Audience Award.

2015 was a year of crisis for the young pianist: Kenichiro was diagnosed with focal dystonia, which caused him to lose the function of his right hand. This stroke of fate challenged his musicality and he demonstrated not only his ingenuity but also his determined, committed character. He now studied left-hand solo repertoire, some of it arranged by himself.

Despite the setback, Kenichiro Kojima remained active and competed successfully in several competitions with repertoire for the left hand. He was awarded 1st prize at the ICoM Piano Award 2017 in Hamburg (Germany), 3rd prize at the Vigo International Piano Competition 2018 (Spain), 1st prize with two special prizes at the Livorno International Piano Competition 2019 (Italy) and the First Great Award at the 4th Manhattan International Music Competition 2019 (USA). He has performed at major festivals and concert events throughout Europe and Japan, including the Hamburger Klang Werk in Germany, the International Music Festival "Puplinge Classique" and Les Renconters Musicales de Champery in Switzerland, the Laieszhalle (Musikhalle Hamburg) and Kampnagel in Hamburg, the Gasteig in Munich, the Duke's Hall of the Royal Academy of Music in London, the Palau de la Musica in Barcelona, the Suntory Hall and Opera City in Tokyo and the Spring Green Music Festival 2019 in Kanazawa.

As a soloist, he has performed with the Sendai Philharmonic Orchestra under Pascal Verrot, the Seto Philharmonic Orchestra under Kazuhumi Yamashita, the Tokyo International Association of Artists Orchestra under Yukio Kusakawa, the Ensemble Volumia Consort, the Orchester des Jeunes de la Suisse Romande and the Orchester Filharmonica Mihail Jara di Bacau under Ovidiu Bala.
Thanks to Kenichiro Kojima's success at the 4th Manhattan International Music Competition in New York, he is now under the management of Manhattan Concerts Artists and will make his debut at Carnegie Hall in July 2019. Further debut performances are planned at the Kaunas State Philharmonic Hall in Lithuania (March 2020) and in Milan (May 2020). In July 2020, he will give a solo concert at the Puplinge Classique International Music Festival, which will be recorded and broadcast by Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS).

In collaboration with filmmaker Konrad Buschke, Kenichiro Kojima recently published the artist portrait LEFT HAND.

Between 2014 and 2018, he completed a postgraduate course with Eliso Virsaladze at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole. He is currently studying with Stepan Simonian at the Hamburg University of Music and Drama.