Tamaki Kawakubo and Ori Kam Duo

Ori Kam

Violist Ori Kam has performed as soloist on some of the world's premier stages. He is a frequent recitalist and has performed extensively throughout the US, Europe, and Israel. He made his debut at the age of 16 with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Zubin Mehta. Since then, he has performed with virtually every orchestra in Israel, the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, the New Jersey Symphony at the new NJ Performing Arts Center, the Bronxville Symphony, the Manhattan Philharmonia, and Sinfonia Varsovia.

Mr. Kam was born to Israeli Parents in La Jolla, CA in 1975, and grew up in Israel. He started his musical Education at the age of 6, and began playing the viola at 15. In Israel, he studied with Renowned Teacher Chaim Taub, and later Pinchas Zukerman and Patinka Kopec at the Manhattan School of Music in New York. He concluded his studies with Wilfried Strehle at the University for the Arts in Berlin. 

Mr. Kam has been the winner of several awards and prizes including The Swiss Prize at the Geneva Int'l Music Competition, The "Pagannini" Prize in the Int'l Lionel Tertis Competition, and in '95 was the winner of the concerto competition at the Manhattan School of Music. He was awarded the S&R Washington Award grand prize. 

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Tamaki Kawakubo

Grand Prize winner of the 2001 Pablo Sarasate International Violin Competition and winner of the 2002 Tchaikovsky Competition, violinist Tamaki Kawakubo started playing the violin at the age of five in Los Angeles, California. Ms. Kawakubo studied at the Colburn School of Performing Arts in Los Angeles, at Juilliard Pre- College, and finished her studies at the Zurich Musikhochschule. 

Winner of the Avery Fisher Career Grant and the S&R Foundation Washington Award, Ms. Kawakubo has performed numerous recitals in Japan, Spain, Germany, and Israel, and made her Kennedy Center recital debut in 2009.

Ms. Kawakubo’s 2009 – 2010 season included engagements and tours with the Russian National Orchestra, Moscow Radio Symphony, NHK Chamber, Yomiuri Symphony Orchestra, and a tour of Germany with Sinfonia Varsovia. In 2010 – 2011 she performed with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony in Vietnam, the Dresden Philharmonic, the Tel Aviv Chamber Orchestra, the Tokyo Philharmonic, the Yomiuri Symphony Orchestra, and several recitals in the US.

Recently, Ms. Kawakubo has been active in chamber music, performing in a piano trio in Japan, and in a string trio and piano quartet in Europe.

Ms. Kawakubo plays a 1779 Giovanni Battista Guadagnini kindly on loan from the S&R Foundation in Washington, DC. 

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