Chihiro Ono
小野 智尋
violin + viola x Music x ARTs
I began my musical journey at the age of 8 months with copying violin playing with two chopsticks before I could even walk/talk.
At the age of 9, I wrote "I want to master Music". I chose especially music and violin as a tool for exploring human, space, time and sounds.
As my first name Chihiro's " 智尋 " meaning is "searching for wisdom", I am on that journey since.
Born in Chiba / Japan, based in London / U.K since 2000, a Japanese classical trained violinist and violist in Performing Arts. Specialised in Music, such as baroque, classical, contemporary, new, experimental music, and folklore, field sounds, improvisation and experimental theatre.
As a professional violinist, violinist and a chamber musician in performing arts, she has been performing worldwide on stage, festival and media with various esteemed groups including Apartment House, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, CHROMA, Ensemble Modern, Klangforum Wien, London Mozart Players, Octandre Ensemble and Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, with composers such as Georges Aperghis, Peter Ablinger, Friedrich Cerha, Shasha Chen, Bushra El-Truk, Péter Eötvös, Brian Ferneyhough, Helmut Lachenmann, Brigitta Muntendorf, Steve Reich, Du Yun and more.
As an educator, she has been giving / given workshop for up coming composers at institutions, such as Royal College of Music, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Goldsmith University of London, Royal Holloway University of London, London Symphony Orchestra’s "For Composers" programme, King’s College London (UK), Rice University (USA) and Tokyo College of Music (JP).
Since 2013, alongside of being a professional violinist and violist in performing arts, Chihiro intensified her appearance as an sound artist through commissioned pieces and collective-productions for live-performance, radio, film and theatre with various like-minded artists, such as ARCO, Waste Paper Opera, Resonance FM and RFM Extra (UK).
Since 2021, her appearance as a performer with experimental theatre productions has been gradually increasing with established groups such as Forced Entertainment, Oedipa (UK) and Ictus x Quissi (BE).
In 2024, she was selected as one of the 10 composers for the Sound and Music’s In Motion 2024/25 programme in London / UK. Her creative sound art work is merging the wide range of knowledges from the rich repertoires on classical (9c to 2025), new and experimental music, improvisation, field sounds, Eastern folklores and traditional theatrical methods and sounds to philosophy, science, physics for everyday life, are mixed with her own extremely strong vision on sounds and music.
She plays J.B.Guadagnini 1766 (violin), A.Guastalla 1920 (viola) and J.Pawlikowski 2008 (baroque violin).
@ Rhys Haberfield