Hibiki Kobayashi

Hibiki Kobayashi began playing the violin in her native Japan and completed her training in Israel with Chaim Taub. She continued her studies in Berlin at the Universität der Künste before moving to Canada, where she studied with Lorand Fenyves at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.

She has performed with major orchestras including the Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra, the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Israel Chamber Orchestra, and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. Particularly acclaimed in Japan, she has appeared there frequently, including a performance of Sibelius’s Violin Concerto with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra.

In 1993, she gave the Canadian premiere of Darius Milhaud’s Violin Concerto No. 2, dedicated to Arthur LeBlanc. In 2009, she premiered a violin concerto written for her by Helmut Schmidinger at Suntory Hall in Tokyo with the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra, conducted by Adam Fischer.

Her artistry was recognized in 1997 with the Noguchi Prize, making her the youngest recipient of this award. She joined the Quatuor Arthur-LeBlanc in 1992 and has performed extensively with the ensemble, collaborating with many distinguished artists, including pianist André Laplante.

She has received significant support from the Canada Council for the Arts for her chamber music projects, including complete Beethoven violin sonata performances in Canada and Japan.

Hibiki Kobayashi plays a Giovanni Battista Guadagnini violin (Parma, 1766) and previously performed on the Stradivarius “Muntz,” on loan from the Nippon Music Foundation.