Nobuko Imai is considered one of the most outstanding violinists of our time. After finishing her studies at the Toho School of Music, Yale University and the Juilliard School, she won the highest prizes at the prestigious international competitions in Munich and Geneva.
She has performed with highly prestigious orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw and the London and Chicago Symphonies. Likewise, she returns to Japan several times a year to perform as a soloist and to participate in the annual ‘Viola Space’ project. In the 1995-1996 season, she was artistic director of the Hindemith Festivals held at the Wigmore Hall in London, at the Columbia University in New York and the Casals Hall in Tokyo.
In 2009, she founded The Tokyo International Viola Competition, the first international competition in Japan devoted exclusively to the instrument.
She has an impressive discography of over 40 recordings for BIS, Chandos, Hyperion, Philips and Sony, among other labels. As an enthusiast of chamber music, she has performed with prominent artists such as Gidon Kremer, Mischa Maisky and Martha Argerich. A former member of the renowned Vermeer Quartet and Michelangelo Quartet - which she formed in 2003 - she combines a distinguished international solo career with different teaching commitments.
From 1983 to 2003, she was a professor at the Detmold Academy of Music and between 2003 and 2014 she was a professor at the Conservatory of Geneva. She currently teaches at the Amsterdam Conservatory and at the Kronberg International Academy. Since the 2015-2016 academic year, she has been a Professor of the BBVA Foundation Viola Chair at the Reina Sofía Higher School of Music in Madrid.