” … She is one of those rare individuals who had the skills and the intellectual grounding to present a counterpoint to the mainstream from the player’s side (not the composer’s) and to sublimate western music values.”

──Hideaki Kondo / Composer

Ayako KATO performs a wide range of classical and contemporary music, new musics, improvisation, and performing arts, and has appeared in performances organized by the Ichikawa City Cultural Promotion Foundation, Odawara Cultural Foundation, and the Japan Contemporary Music Society.

In 2019, she held her debut recital “Complex.” in Japan. It was reviewed in the music web magazine “Mercure Des Arts”.

In 2021, she received a Master’s diploma from the Belgian conservatory “IMEP”. She completed both the concerto exam, in which she performed violin concerto “The Dreaming Trees” by Dutilleux, and the recital exam, which included improvisation, with the highest scores of the year. She then returned completely to Japan.

In 2024, “SAKUHIN #3 Improvisation by an Actor, Violinist, and Hornist”, a joint project with actor Yui Okamoto, was selected for the Arts Council Tokyo Start-up Grant.

Representative of the arts organization “IMPRO LIBRE”. Member of the Shinshu-based group “Yamabico Lab.” with composer Yukiko Watanabe and Mayuko Matsumoto.

Her main repertoire: The duo for piano and violin those that Beethoven, Mozart, Prokofiev, Poulenc, and other composers have written.