Anne Akiko Meyers

Anne Akiko Meyers is celebrated as one of the world’s premier concert violinists. Meyers is constantly ‘charting her own course’ and the American Record Guide is quoted as saying, ‘through her peerless mastery and vivid imagination there seems to be no limit to the colors she can draw from her instrument.’ She regularly performs as featured soloist with orchestras around the world, including the Boston Symphony, London's Philharmonia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Minnesota Orchestra, Montreal Symphony, Moscow Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo's NHK Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Vienna Symphony and the Warsaw Philharmonic. On Valentine's Day, 2012, Meyers' eagerly anticipated 'Air-The Bach Album', on eOne, debuted at #1 on Billboard charts and has been a bestseller at iTunes and Amazon. It features Bach’s solo violin concerti as well as the double concerto where Meyers played both solo parts on the 1697 ex-'Napoleon/Molitor' and the 1730 'Royal Spanish' Stradivari violins with the English Chamber Orchestra. Also featured, are Bach’s ‘Air’, ‘Largo’ and and Bach-Gounod’s ‘Ave Maria’. eOne Records previously released 'Seasons...dreams', featuring music with harp and piano and includes several world premieres in 2010 and and ‘Smile’, released in 2009. Both recordings topped the Billboard charts. Next season, Meyers commissioned Mason Bates, to write his first violin concerto. Meyers will premiere it with Leonard Slatkin and the Pittsburgh Symphony and Giancarlo Guerrero and the Nashville Symphony. Other highlights include a performance of the Barber Violin Concerto with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall and many other orchestral, recital, and chamber music appearances. Recently, Meyers performed across North America, Europe, Korea, and Japan, working with the Saint Louis Symphony, Dusseldorf Symphoniker, Korean Broadcasting Symphony and the Tokyo Philharmonic and many other orchestras. Anne performed a special benefit recital for Play For Japan in San Francisco, which was broadcast around the world on the Internet and was featured with Ryuichi Sakamoto at New York's Japan Society, raising funds for the Japan Earthquake Fund. Over the years, Meyers has collaborated with pop singing sensation, Il Divo, top jazz artists such as Chris Botti, and Wynton Marsalis, who composed cadenzas for her in Mozart’s G Major Violin Concerto, and performed the National Anthem to 42,000 fans at Safeco Field before the Mariners-Red Sox game in Seattle. Meyers’ has recorded extensively for labels including Avie, Camerata, eOne/Koch, Hyperion, Naxos, RCA Victor Red Seal, RPO, Sony and Warner Classics. View her discography on Amazon and iTunes. Ms. Meyers has regularly performed and commissioned new compositions, premiering works by composers such as David Baker, Mason Bates, Jakub Ciupinski, John Corigliano, Roddy Ellias, Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Jennifer Higdon, Wynton Marsalis, Olivier Messiaen, Akira Miyoshi, Arvo Part, Manuel Ponce, Gene Pritsker, Somei Satoh, and Joseph Schwantner Meyers' television credits include a feature on MSNBC's 'Countdown with Keith Olbermann', a segment that was so popular it was named the #3 story of 2010. An A&E Network telecast from the Casals Festival with the Montreal Symphony, a PBS broadcast with the Boston Pops Orchestra and John Williams and her appearances on “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson and the "Emmy Award Show" attracted national attention. She was also featured in a performance with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Holland that attracted an audience of 10,000 and was globally broadcast live on the Internet. Meyers also performed in front of 750,000 people in Sydney, Australia's Harbour, celebrating their 200th Bicentennial and has performed for dignitaries including the Emperor and Empress of Japan. Meyers has been featured in numerous print and television commercials including Anne Klein’s “Women of Substance” fashion campaign that appeared in magazines around the world and was photographed by Annie Leibovitz and recently starred in ads for Tourneau. Starting her studies at age 4, she first performed with a local orchestra at the age of 7, then burst into prominence at age 11, when she twice performed on "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson and appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The following year she made her New York Philharmonic debut with Zubin Mehta conducting, and was soon performing throughout the United States, Japan, Australia and Europe. By the time her debut disc of the Barber and Bruch violin concertos with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra was released at age 18, she was recognized as one of the stars of her generation. Meyers was born in San Diego, California and grew up in Southern California. She studied with Alice and Eleonore Schoenfeld at the Colburn School of Performing Arts, Josef Gingold at Indiana University, and Felix Galimir, Masao Kawasaki and Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard School. At age 23, she was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, the only artist to be the sole recipient of this annual prize. Anne performs on the 'Ex-Napoleon/Molitor' Stradivarius violin from 1697 and the 'Royal Spanish' Stradivarius violin dated 1730. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.