About the NCCP Players
Ayano Ninomiya
Violin
Guest Artist
Second-prize winner of the 2003 Walter W. Naumburg Competition and winner of Astral Artistic Services' 2003 National Auditions, violinist Ayano Ninomiya has appeared extensively as soloist with orchestras across the U.S. Astral presented her on its "Rising Stars" series at Philadelphia's Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, and recently featured her with other Astral artists at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall. She also led the Haddonfield Symphony Chamber Orchestra in Vivaldi's The Four Seasons and gave her Philadelphia recital debut, both under Astral's auspices. This season Astral presents her in a performance of piano trios, with Astral cellist Clancy Newman and renowned pianist Claude Frank.
Ms. Ninomiya made her Boston Pops debut under Keith Lockhart, and has been featured with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Harrisburg and Dubuque symphonies, the Mobile and Gulf Port orchestras, the Civic Symphony of Boston, the Boston Philharmonic, and the Port City (Alabama) Symphony. She is the recent recipient of an S&R Washington Award and the 2003 Lili Boulanger Award. As a 2005 recipient of the Frank Huntington Beebe Fellowship, she spent the 2005-2006 season in Budapest researching the Bartók Archives and studying at the Franz Liszt Academy.
An active recitalist, Ms. Ninomiya recently gave her highly acclaimed New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall under the auspices of the Naumburg Foundation. She has appeared on the "Young Artist Showcase" at Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, at the Rockport Chamber Music Festival, on the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series in Chicago, and on BankBoston’s "Emerging Artist" Series. She gave her Ravinia Festival recital debut on its "Rising Stars" series, was presented in recital in Sofia, Bulgaria, and toured Japan as part of the JAL Classic Special New Artist Series. She recorded the complete works for violin by Larry Bell; Philadelphia's City Paper placed this CD on its list of "Top 10 Classical Recordings of 2003."
Also an avid chamber musician, Ms. Ninomiya performs regularly at the Marlboro, Caramoor, Rockport, and Strings in the Mountains chamber music festivals. She toured with the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, "Musicians from Marlboro," for New York City’s WQXR radio, and as a member of the Ravinia Festival's "Young Artists from the Steans Institute" series. As a founding member and first violinist of the Amaryllis String Quartet she won First Prize at the 1995 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition in the Junior Division; she has since appeared with the Quartet at the Kennedy Center’s National Festival of the Arts, the Colorado Music Festival, and the Martha's Vineyard Festival, among others. The Amaryllis Quartet has collaborated with violinist Pamela Frank and cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
Ayano Ninomiya received a Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School, where she studied with Robert Mann, and holds joint degrees in Music and French from Harvard College. Her principal teachers included Michèle Auclair, Marylou Churchill, Miriam Fried, Hyo Kang, and Eszter Perenyi. Born in Takamatsu, Japan, she moved the U.S. when she was one year old and began violin studies at the age of seven. The following year she entered the New England Conservatory of Music Preparatory School and made her professional debut with the North Shore (MA) Symphony.