Aki Kitajima
Cello
Aki Kitajima, violoncello / Baroque cello
Aki Kitajima was born in Chiba, Japan. She received her bachelor’s degrees at the Toho-Gakuen school of music under Prof. Keiko Matsunami. Additionally, she took private classes under Prof. Ryosuke Hori there. In 2003 she won first prize at the 10th Nippon Best Players competition.
From 2008 until 2013, she studied Violoncello under Prof. Francis Gouton, as well as Contemporary Music under Erik Borgir (Ensemble Ascolata) and Sven Thomas Kiebler (Ensemble SurPlus Freiburg) at Musikhochschule Trossingen in Germany. Furthermore, she took improvisation classes under Harald Kimming and Thomas Wenk-Bärmann.
She also received a scholarship and she was a academy student at the International Ensemble Modern Academy in 2013/14.
In 2014, she received 3rd prize at Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Hochschulwettbewerb in the category “Ensemble - New Music”.
From 2015 until 2017, she studied Baroque cello at Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt under Prof. Kristin von der Goltz.
She is a regular extra player at both Ensemble Modern and the Ensemble Modern Orchestra and participated in a variety of different festivals for contemporary music, both as a chamber musician and as a soloist, such as International Summer Course for Contemporary music in Darmstadt, Gaudeams Muziekweek in Utrecht, Kurt Weil Fest in Dessau and cresc... Festival in Frankfurt.
Since December 2017 she is based in Japan and working on projects all over the world.
Website: www.akikitajima.com