Shion Ota

Japanese pianist Shion Ota, winner of the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy University Competition 2026, was born in Osaka, Japan, in 2000 and began playing the piano at the age of five. In 2025, she was selected as a semifinalist in the Queen Elisabeth Competition, one of the world’s most prestigious international piano competitions.

Her international competition successes include numerous top prizes: in 2025, she won First Prize and the Audience Prize at the André Dumortier International Piano Competition. In 2024, she received First Prize and the Audience Prize at the International Piano Competition of Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux. In 2022, she was awarded First Prize at the Coimbra World Piano Meeting and Third Prize at the Sendai International Music Competition. In 2021, she received Sixth Prize as well as the Noel Mewton-Wood Prize at the Sydney International Piano Competition. As early as 2018, she won Second Prize at the Malta International Piano Competition.

She has also received numerous awards in Japan. At the All Japan Student Music Competition, she won first prizes at both regional and national levels in the elementary and junior high school divisions and was honored with several special prizes. At the PTNA Piano Competition National Final, she was a prizewinner for ten consecutive years; in 2016, she received the Silver Prize and the Audience Prize in the highest category. In 2023, she was awarded the 33rd Aoyama Music Award for a highly acclaimed Bach recital.

As a soloist, she has performed at the Konzerthaus Berlin and the Rudolfinum, among other venues. She has appeared with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Royal Chamber Orchestra of Wallonia, the Armenian National Symphony Orchestra, the North Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orquestra Filarmónica Portuguesa, as well as leading Japanese orchestras including the Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra, the Kansai Philharmonic Orchestra, the Osaka Symphony Orchestra, and the Sendai Philharmonic Orchestra.

In 2018, she was featured as an artist in the Chanel Pygmalion Days series and presented a six-part recital series in Ginza. She has appeared in numerous media outlets, including RBB’s Generation Klassik, NHK-FM’s Recital Nova and Recital Passio, and ABC Television. In 2017, she participated as the pianist for the original works in the NHK E-Tele anime production ClassicaLoid. She has also released a digital album with Warner Music Japan.

After graduating early from the Tokyo College of Music High School, she completed her undergraduate studies at the Tokyo College of Music ahead of schedule at the age of 20 as a special scholarship student. Following further studies at the Nagoya University of Arts, she completed her Master’s degree in Piano Performance (Solist) at the Berlin University of the Arts with highest honors. She is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Piano Chamber Music at the same institution.

Her teachers have included Yukio Yokoyama, Björn Lehmann, and Norie Takahashi; she also studied fortepiano with Lucas Blondeel. She is a scholarship recipient of several prestigious funding institutions in Japan and Germany and was selected for the Japanese government’s official overseas study program for young artists.