Kanako Ito, Concertmistress
Miller Nichols Chair
Studies, Paris Conservatory
Artist Diploma, New England Conservatory

Member of the Orchestra Since 2000

Kanako Ito, Concertmistress of the Kansas City Symphony since 2000, has had a distinguished career as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral leader. She has won prizes in many international competitions, including the Geneva Competition, the Lexus Violin Competition in New Zealand, the Japanese-American Association Competition in New York, and the Schöntal Violin Competition in Germany. Her solo appearances include performances with the Leningrad State Orchestra, the Suisse Romande Orchestra, Wiener Streicher Solisten, Romania Radio Symphony, the Chautauqua Symphony, the New Zealand Symphony, the Winterthur Orchestra, and the Suk Chamber Orchestra. She has also performed with many of the major orchestras in Japan and has appeared on NHK FM Radio and on Nippon TV (NTV) and NHK TV.

A frequent collaborator in chamber music, Ito is a member of Quartet Accorda, quartet in residence at Park University, and has performed in many formats from duo to octet with established artists around the world. She is a frequent guest artist at the International Music Arts Institute in Maine and the Corbridge Music Festival in the UK. She regularly travels to Europe and Japan, where she continues to give concerts and masterclasses.

A native of northern Japan, she started playing the violin at the age of five. After studying at the Toho-Gakuen Music High School in Tokyo with Ryosaku Kubota and Yoshiharu Kubo, Ito continued her studies at the Paris Conservatoire where her teacher was Michéle Auclair. She then completed the Artist Diploma Program at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, where she continued studying with Mme. Auclair. Ito has also taken part in master classes with Eric Rosenblith, Pinchas Zukerman, and Stefan Gheorghiu. After her study, she moved to London where she lived and worked for several years, performed as a member of the chamber ensemble Mobius, and toured with many of the major London orchestras.

Ito has recorded CDs for the Fontec label in Japan. These include the complete sonatas by Saint-Saëns and Grieg with the pianist Phillip Moll. She has also recorded for EMI, ASV and Naxos with Mobius. In addition to her performing career, Ito currently teaches at the Youth Conservatory for Music at Park University where her husband Martin Storey is on the faculty as professor of cello.