Mai Matsumoto is a Japanese violinist based in Miami Beach, Florida, currently performing as a member of the New World Symphony. She was a member of the Symphony in C and has held concertmaster and principal positions in the Juilliard Chamber Orchestra, Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra in Germany, the Pacific Music Festival Orchestra in Japan, and the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra. In addition, she has spent four summers at the Aspen Music Festival as a recipient of the New Horizons Fellowship.

 

As a soloist, Mai has performed recitals in New York City, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Tokyo, and she appeared as a soloist with the South Valley Symphony, Prometheus Symphony Orchestra, DVC Philharmonic Orchestra, and the North American Medical Orchestra. She was also featured in the Salon de Virtuosi's Summer Song from Japan concert at the Consulate General of Japan in New York. A semifinalist in the Thomas and Evon Cooper International Competition, she received first prize at the Mondavi Center Young Artists Competition and an Honorable Mention from the National YoungArts Foundation, among others.  

 

Mai's passion for community service flourished during her time at the Juilliard School, where she was a violinist in the Para Quintet, a recipient of the Gluck Community Service Fellowship. This interdisciplinary group dedicated themselves to using music and dance as vehicles for community engagement. She also co-founded The YongArts Trio, partnering with the Montefiore Medical Center in New York to bring uplifting music to hospital waiting rooms. Mai regularly performs virtual bedside concerts as part of the Project Music Heals Us: Vital Sounds Initiative. Furthermore, she was a member of The "Back to Bach” Project: Kids for Classical, where she first realized the importance of making classical music more accessible through education and outreach performances.

 

Mai's dedication extends beyond performing, as she shares her musical passion through teaching. She works with music education programs in Miami, and while in New York, she was a Morse Teaching Artist Fellow at Juilliard, an Ambassador for the Opportunity Music Project, and a teaching artist at Chamber Music Society’s Petting Zoo events. In 2023, she served as a teaching artist during the Atlanta Music Project’s Summer Series.

 

Originally from Tokyo, Japan, Mai began playing the violin at the age of four at the Toho Gakuen School of Music for Children with Ami Watanabe. After moving to the United States at age ten, she continued her studies at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Pre-College Division with Bettina Mussumeli and Zhao Wei. Mai received her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from the Juilliard School, where she studied with Naoko Tanaka and Catherine Cho. ​​