Akane Sakai
Born in Nagoya, Akane Sakai studied under Midori Miura at Toho Gakuen Music High School and Toho Gakuen School of Music.
After graduating, Akane went to Belgium and studied under Evgeny Mogilevsky at Royal Conservatory of Brussels and completed the master's course with top honors at the Lemmens Institute under Alan Weiss. She further studied with Pavel Gililov and Lilya Zilberstein. Akane was selected as a scholarship student by the NPO Yellow Angel and as a trainee for Program of Overseas Study for Upcoming Artists by the Agency for Cultural Affairs of Japan.
Akane Sakai has performed with many orchestras including Kremerata Baltica, Sinfonia Varsovia, Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, Avignon-ProvenceNational Orchestra of France, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Manchester Camerata, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, and under the baton of Alexander Vedernikov, Sylvain Cambreling, Lionel Bringuier, Jean-Jacques Kantorow, Hubert Soudant and Naoto Otomo.
She has been invited to numerous music festivals worldwide, including La Folle Journée (Nantes and Tokyo), Pacific Music Festival (Sapporo), The Festival de La Roque d'Anthéron, "Chopin and His Europe International Music Festival" (Poland), Lausitz Festival (Germany), Lugano Festival (Switzerland), Argerich’s Meeting Point in Beppu (Beppu Argerich Music Festival) among others.
Her repertoire ranges widely from Bach to Prokofiev, Bartók, Messiaen, and Takemitsu, and she actively performs rare works by composers such as Szpilman, Maciejewski, and Weinberg.
She is also deeply involved in chamber music and has performed with Martha Argerich, Gidon Kremer, Ivry Gitlis, Yuzuko Horigome, Nicholas Angelich, Alexander Knyazev, Mayu Kishima, Evgeni Bozhanov, and Yoshiko Kawamoto.
Her recordings include a live CD from the "Lugano Festival" released by Warner Music and Deutsche Grammophon, and her first solo CD "Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Ravel" released by King International, which was selected as a special edition by Record Geijutsu magazine. The latest album, "VOYAGES," was released by German label Acousence in June 2022.
In addition to being the artistic planner for the Argerich Music Festival in Hamburg, Germany, she is also active as a jury member for international competitions, conducting masterclasses in various locations, and engaging in writing activities.
