Chihiro Sugawara

“Music transcends the barriers of religion, ethnicity, and language to move people and connect them.” A student at the Music High School Attached to the Faculty of Music, Tokyo University of the Arts, Chihiro Sugawara has studied piano with Kaai Sugano for the past nine years and Kei Itoh for the last two. She’s won five piano competitions in Japan, including, most recently, the Beethoven International Piano Competition Asia and the Yamaha Junior Piano Competition. She comes now to the Cliburn Junior “to experience a world stage that I had never experienced before.” She hopes “to convey the wonder and excitement of music and spread it to many people.” Chihiro has performed with the Ashikaga Symphony Orchestra in Tochigi and the Geidai Philharmonia Orchestra in Tokyo, as well as the Yamaha Rising Pianists Concert. In her free time, she enjoys looking at paintings in museums.