Daishin Kashimoto

Daishin Kashimoto is First Concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic and a soloist in high demand across the globe.  He has performed with a list of orchestras that includes the Boston Symphony, Orchestre Nationale de France, Bavarian and Frankfurt Radio Symphony orchestras, Dresden Staatskapelle,  St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and Czech Philharmonic as well as the NHK Symphony.  He has performed with conductors Seiji Ozawa, Lorin Maazel, Semyon Bychkov, Sir Simon Rattle, Mariss Jansons and Charles Dutoit amongst many others.

Daishin is also active in the field of chamber music, and has performed with noted musicians such as Martha Argerich, Itamar Golan, Yuri Bashmet, Gidon Kremer, Mischa Maisky, Gérard Caussée, Paul Meyer, Emmanuel Pahud, Eric Le Sage, and others. Since 2007, Daishin has served as music director at annual chamber music festival “Le Pont” in Ako and Himeji in Japan.

Daishin was appointed as the first concertmaster of the Berliner Philharmoniker in 2009. He performed also as a soloist with Berliner Philharmoniker under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle and Andris Nelsons. In addition, he is a member of the Philharmonic Octet Berlin.

From 2010 to spring 2013, Daishin performed and recorded all of the Beethoven violin sonatas together with pianist Konstantin Lifschitz, and they received high praise for their concerts throughout Japan spanning three tours. The complete CD box of Beethoven: Complete Violin Sonatas, was released worldwide on Warner Classics in January 2014.  Previously he released various other CDs including the Brahms Violin Concerto with the Dresden Staatskapelle and Myung Whun Chung for Sony.

Daishin took his first lessons from Kumiko Etoh in Tokyo. In 1986 he was the youngest ever student accepted to attend the pre-college division of the Juilliard School of Music in New York, studying with Naoko Tanaka and in 1990 he accepted an invitation from Zakhar Bron to study with him in Germany and so he moved to the Lübeck Musikhochschule. From 1999 to 2004 he was a pupil of Professor Rainer Kussmaul at the Freiburg Musikhochschule.  He is first prize winner of a long list of competitions, including the 6th Menuhin International Junior Violin Competition in England in 1993, the International Competition for Violinists in Cologne in 1994 and in 1996, both the International Fritz Kreisler Violin Competition in Vienna and the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud International Competition for Piano and Violin in Paris.

Daishin lives in Berlin with his family. He plays on a violin made by Andrea Guarneri, 1674.