Yumeka Nakagawa
Pianist
Yumeka Nakagawa, born in Düsseldorf in 2001, has been playing the piano since she was 4 years old. She won First Prize with 25 points at the German national competition “Jugend musiziert” and a scholarship from the Carl Bechstein Foundation.
Along with Marie Sophie Hauzel, Ron Maxim Huang and Jens Scheuerbrandt, she is one of the first generation of scholarship holders of the Carl Bechstein Foundation, which was only established in December 2012. Yumeka was sponsored by that foundation for three years and gave many wonderful performances at scholarship concerts back then. Later, she studied in the UK at the Purcell School of Music, which is also sponsored by the foundation. Yumeka had in the meantime moved from Barbara Szczepanska (Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf) to William Fong.
Yumeka Nakagawa is the 2021 Prix Clara Haskil recipient (Concours International de Piano Clara Haskil), as well as winner of the prestigious competition’s Audience Award and Children’s Corner Award. She was also the first prizewinner at the 2019 International Robert Schumann Competition (Düsseldorf) and second prizewinner at the International Franz Liszt Competition for Young Pianists (Weimar) in 2014. Since 2019 she has appeared on the stages of the Wigmore Hall in London, Tonhalle Düsseldorf and Rachmaninoff Hall at the Mariinsky Theater. Yumeka currently pursues her bachelor’s degree at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar with Grigory Gruzman.