Kaoru Yamada

Kaoru Yamada graduated from the Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo, where she studied with Namiko Umezu and Koichiro Harada. In 2001 she gained a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music as a post-graduate.

During this time she has performed regularly in Tokyo (including Brahms Trios, Beethoven String Quartet Op130 and Gross Fugue) and has been regularly employed playing with the NHK Symphony Orchestra and playing in the Seiji Ozawa Opera Project. She also joins the Saito-Kinen Orchestra this summer.

She formed the Byron Piano Trio in 2002 at the Royal Academy of Music and has enjoyed considerable success since then. In a wide range of repertoire, including Haydn, Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, Charles Ives, Ravel and Shostakovich, the Trio performed at the Young Musician's Festival in Halifax and, for two years running, at the Tunnell Trust for Young Musicians in Strathgarry House, Perthshire. Recently the Trio was awarded the Marjorie Lemfort Award at the Academy.

Kaoru also has an independent solo career, appearing as a recitalist for the Tunnell Trust, as well as a number of concert series in Oxford and the northwest of England.

In 1998, she was a prizewinner in the 49th Japan Music Competition for young musicians and in the 8th Japan Mozart Competition.

Recently she has won the RAM Club Prize, which is one of the most prestigious competitions in the Academy, and she was given the opportunity for a recital in the RAM next spring. She has completed her studies at RAM with DipRAM and John Mundy Gifts in 2004. Kaoru is currently living in London while studying with Richard Deakin and on trial with The Northern Sinfonia.