Daishin Kashimoto
Concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic, Daishin Kashimoto studied with Prof. Naoko Tanaka, a faculty member at the Juilliard School. He was accepted by the pre-college division of the Juilliard School as its youngest student and received the Edward John Noble Foundation Scholarship. He continued his studies in Germany with Prof. Zakhar Bron at the Luebeck Musikhochschule and at the Staatliche Hochschule fur Musik in Freiburg under Prof. Rainer Kussmaul.

In 1988, Kashimoto gave his first recital, as well as his first concert as a soloist with the New York Symphonic Ensemble in New York. Since then, he has given recitals and solo appearances in the USA, the Far East and in many European countries. He has performed with numerous internationally renowned orchestras, including the State Symphony Orchestra of Russia, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Radio Symphony Orchestras of Cologne, Frankfurt and Moscow, Orchestre National de France, Vienna and Berlin Symphony Orchestras, English Chamber Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony, under the baton of such great conductors as Hugh Wolff, Lord Yehudi Menuhin, Seiji Ozawa, Lorin Maazel, Heinrich Schiff, Mikhail Pletnev, Myung-Whun Chung and Yury Temirkanov.

Daishin Kashimoto is first prize winner of such renowned competitions as the 6th Menuhin International Junior Violin Competition (England, 1993), the International Competition for Violinists (Cologne, 1994), and, in 1996, as the youngest winner in history of both the International Fritz Kreisler Violin Competition in Vienna and the Marguerite Long – Jacques Thibaud International Competition for Piano and Violin in Paris. In 1994, Daishin was awarded the Steigenberger Prize and the Davidoff Prize, as well as the Brahms Prize (Germany, 1999).

Kashimoto signed a worldwide recording contract with Sony Classical and has released two CDs with Itamar Golan and a live recording with the Staatskapelle Dresden and Myung-Whum Chung.