Nobuko Imai

Nobuko Imai is considered one of the leading contemporary viola players. She began her training at Tokyo's Toho Gakuen School of Music and soon after went to the United States, where she studied at the Juilliard School and Yale University. She won the highest prize at both the Geneva International Music Competition and the ARD International Music Competition in Munich.

As a chamber musician, Nobuko Imai has worked with artists such as Martha Argerich, Kyung-Wha Chung, Heinz Holliger, Mischa Maisky, Midori, Murray Perahia, Gidon Kremer, Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, András Schiff, Isaac Stern, and Pinchas Zukerman. She appeared with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, and Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She is a former member of the Vermeer Quartet and is the founder and a member of the Michelangelo String Quartet, where she performs together with Mihaela Martin, Daniel Austrich, and Frans Helmerson.

Her discography includes more than forty releases on labels such as BIS, Chandos, DG, EMI, Hyperion, and Philips. She has been a recipient of numerous awards including the Avon Arts Award (1993), Japan's Suntory Music Award (1995), and Mainichi Award of Arts (1996). Tōru Takemitsu composed the viola concerto A String around Autumn for her in 1989.

As a professor, Nobuko Imai taught at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold and the Tibor Varga Academy, Sion. She is currently teaching at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, Queen Sofia College of Music in Madrid, Ueno Gakuen University in Tokyo, and as a principal professor at Kronberg Academy. Imai plays a 1690 guarneri.