Presented by the Royal Academy of Music
Saki Kato is a Japanese classical guitarist who has performed extensively all over the world, including concerts in the U.K.,Taiwan, China, Australia, Italy, the USA, and Japan, where she gave her first performance of Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez at the age of twelve. Since then she has performed this concerto numerous times, and most recently in concerts with the Welsh Sinfonia. Having won many guitar competitions in Japan, she entered and became the first Japanese winner of the Guitar Foundation of America’s Youth Solo Competition aged eleven, with a perfect 100% score from each of the judges. She began her musical studies aged three, studying both guitar and piano, and at the age of eight started studying with Japanese maestro Shin-ichi Fukuda. She has also studied with numerous others internationally, including with Oscar Ghiglia (at the Chigianna Music Academy in Italy), David Russell, William Kanengiser, Eduardo Fernandes, Fabio Zanon, Christoph Denoth, Xuefei Yang, and Berta Rojas. Currently, she studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London with Michael Lewin, and has been supported by the F. G. Fitch Bequest Scholarship, the Blyth Watson Award, and the Julian Bream Trust, for whom she will be performing a concert in autumn 2019, which will include the world premiere of a piece by Edward Cowie.