Coco Tomita

Violinist Coco Tomita recorded her debut album in 2002 while still in her teens. In 2020, she won the BBC Young Musician competition in the strings category. Tomita was born in Japan in 2002. Both of her parents were pianists, and she grew up in an environment where her musical ambitions were encouraged. Tomita took up the violin at age four. She grew up partly in Britain, where she enrolled at the Yehudi Menuhin School in Stoke d'Abernon. Her principal teachers there were Lutsia Ibragimova and Natasha Boyarsky. In 2010, she won a prize in the Junior section of Italy's Andrea Postacchini International Violin Competition in Italy. Two years later, her concert career began with an appearance at Cadogan Hall in London with the Southbank Sinfonia. Tomita went on to win other prizes, including gold medals at the Vienna International Music Competition and Berliner International Music Competition, the Carl Flesch Prize at the Carl Flesch Academy, and first prize at the Eastbourne Symphony Orchestra Young Soloist Competition. She also plays chamber music, and pianist Alina Ibragimova has been a prominent partner. She enrolled at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler, Berlin, in 2021, studying with Koija Blacher. Tomita has appeared with orchestras in several continental European countries, including the Philharmonie Baden-Baden in Germany (where she was hired for a return appearance in 2022), in Canada, and in her native Japan, where she mounted a successful tour that included appearances with the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra and the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Axelrod at Suntory Hall in Tokyo. A major career breakthrough for Tomita was a win at the 2020 BBC Young Musicians Competition in the string section. That brought with it the chance to record for the Orchid Classics label, and Tomita released her debut album, Origins, on that label in 2022. It was a violin-and-piano recital on which she was joined by Simon Callaghan.
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