An internationally renowned violinist admired for her extraordinary artistic versatility, Sayaka Shoji was born in Tokyo and moved to Siena at the age of three. She studied at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana and the Musikhochschule in Cologne, making her debut at the age of 14 with the Lucerne Festival Strings at the Lucerne Festival and the Musikverein in Vienna.

In 1999, she won the Premio Paganini, becoming the youngest winner in the history of the competition. Since then, she has been invited to collaborate with conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Lorin Maazel, Semyon Bychkov, Mariss Jansons, and Yuri Temirkanov, performing with some of the world’s most important orchestras: Berliner Philharmoniker, London Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Wiener Symphoniker, Mariinsky Orchestra, and NHK Symphony Orchestra, among others.

For the first time, she returns to the Premio Paganini as a juror, more than twenty years after her victory.