Biography / Photos

Mio Sasaki was born in Osaka.

Sasaki won several international competitions including Luigi Nono International Chamber Music Competition (2022, both solo and chamber music category), International Violin Competiton Saar (2023, also winning the audience prize), Swiss International Competition (2023) and Valsesia Musica International Competition for Violin and Orchestra (2024). She was laureate of Augustin Aponte International Music Competition (2019), International Violin Competition Hammelburg (2019), Elise Meyer Competition (2020, 2021), Premio Rodolfo Lipizer International Violin Competition (2022, also winning the Tartini Prize) and Premio Città di Padova (2025).

In 2013, Sasaki received the “Citizen’s Cultural Honour” from her hometown Hirakata.

Her performance of solo with an orchestra did Mio Sasaki with Hamburger Symphoniker, Symphony Orchestra of the Opera Studio of Lviv National Academy of Music, Bazzini Consort Orchestra, Master Orchestra Verona, Lüneburger Symphoniker and Antonio Vivaldi Orchestra under the baton of Aram Khacheh, Yuriy Bervetsky, Sergio Baietta and Ulrich Windfuhr.

Mio Sasaki has taken part in several master classes and studied with Naohisa Miyama, Lara Lev, Yoshio Unno, Nicolas Chumachenco, Christoph Schickedanz, Kazuhiro Takagi, Keiko Urushihara, Tanja Becker-Bender, Sebastian Schmidt, Christian Altenburger, Midori, Lihay Bendayan, Kevorg Mardirossian, Jun Zuo, Alfredo García Serrano and Yuzuko Horigome.

Sasaki has until today studied with Kyoko Takahata, Mari Ono, Samuel Mateescu, Lara Lev, Yukimi Maeda, Sachi Noso, Kazuhiro Takagi, Keiko Urushihara and Yoshio Unno.
From October 2019, she studies at Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg with Prof. Christoph Schickedanz.

Sasaki got the opportunity to be concertmaster of Symphony Orchester Mecklenburg Vorpommern and assistant concertmaster of Osaka Symphony Orchestra for several times.

During the season 2025/26 she had a temporary contract as second concertmaster at Göttingen Symphony Orchestra.

She is also a passionate chamber musician and played with Uwe Brandt, Alexej Petrov, Kensei Yamaguchi, Hiroyuki Kanaki, Yasuhiro Suzuki, Ryo Oshima and Yoshitaka Suzuki.

Mio Sasaki was scholarship student of Tobitate! Study Abroad JAPAN Japanese Ambassador Program.
Since February 2020 she is scholarship student of „Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now Hamburg“.

The violin on which Sasaki is playing now is an Antonio Pelizon (ca.1820) kindly loaned from the violin maker Christian Erichson.