Violinist Matthew Sakiyama is 15 years old and a sophomore at the Nueva High School in San Mateo. He began studying violin at the age of 5, and currently studies with Mr. Elbert Tsai at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He has won first prize at competitions including the Pacific Music Society Competition, the US Open Music Competition, the US International Music Competition, Sewanee Summer Music Festival Concerto Competition, and the DVC/HNU Youth Competition. He also won 2nd prize at the Burlingame Music Competition in 2019, and received an honorable mention at the US international Music Competition in 2018. In addition, he was a finalist for the Classics Alive Young Artist Auditions and the Palo Alto Philharmonic Concerto Competition. He has been invited to perform at Junior Bach for the last 5 years, and has been chosen to perform at several Junior Bach special concerts. In the summer of 2017, he performed as both soloist and concertmaster with the Sewanee Summer Music Festival Orchestra and in 2019, he was invited to play on the KPFA podcast “Ideas and Ideals.” He has also performed in masterclasses led by Danielle Belen, Xi Chan, and William van der Sloot.
Matthew joined the El Camino Youth Symphony Galbraith Honor Strings at the age of nine, and has been playing in youth orchestras for the six years since. After spending one year each in the ECYS Galbraith Honor Strings, Sinfonietta, and Senior Symphony orchestras, he became the youngest member of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra at age twelve. He has spent three years with SFSYO and is currently a first violinist. This summer, the SFSYO will go on tour in Denmark, Germany, Austria, and Hungary, and perform at venues such as the Elbphilharmonie, Berliner Philharmonie, and Musikverein.
His first experience with chamber music was at the Del Sol QuartetFest in the summer of 2013, where he studied with members of the Del Sol Quartet. Since then, his chamber groups have been coached by Joseph Maile and Eric Chin of the Telegraph Quartet, Lisa Lee of the Lee Trio and Zakarias Grafilo of the Alexander String Quartet. Matthew’s chamber groups have also played in master classes with the Juilliard String Quartet and St. Lawrence String Quartet, and performed with the Telegraph and Alexander String Quartets in 2019. He joined Young Chamber Musicians in 2018, and his string quartet won 3rd prize at the Galante Prize Competition this year.
Matthew toured with the National Youth Orchestra 2 in 2018 and had an opportunity to perform at Carnegie Hall with violinist Gil Shaham and members of the New World Symphony. He will be joining NYO2 aga in the summer of 2019.
Caprice No 24, Niccolo Paganini, 4:54
https://youtu.be/43NfUWJbqHo
Partita for Violin No. 3 Preludio, J.S. Bach, 3:40
https://youtu.be/5zCkFAMaegg
Partita for Violin No. 3 Gigue, J.S. Bach, 2:24
https://youtu.be/MYTKgvB1rb0
