ON THIS DAY

Today is American Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers' Birthday!

May 15, 2020

2 MIN READ

Today is American violinist Anne Akiko Meyers' 54th birthday!

Anne Akiko Meyers was born in California in 1970, she is the daughter of an artist and a college president. Raised in Southern California, she first studied the violin with Shirley Helmick, and then with Alice and Eleonore Schoenfeld at the preparatory division of the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music in Los Angeles.

Meyers pursued further studies with Josef Gingold at Indiana University, and with Dorothy DeLay, Felix Galimir, and Masao Kawasaki at the Juilliard School in New York City.Graduating from Juilliard at the age of 20, she began a career of international touring and recording, collaborating with eminent composers, conductors, and orchestras. She has also contributed to the creation of a remarkable collection of new violin works, which includes a violin and orchestra composition by Eric Whitacre and Philip Glass's New Chaconne.

Anne's highlight performances of the 2023-24 season includes Philip Glass's Violin Concerto No.1 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the iconic Hollywood Bowl and also with the Prague Philharmonia. Early this year she performed and toured the USA with Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. She also championed the world premiere of Billy Childs’s requiem, "In The Arms of the Beloved," with the esteemed Los Angeles Master Chorale.

Anne also made a memorable appearance on NPR's acclaimed Tiny Desk series and undertook a residency at the Laguna Beach Music Festival, where she held the esteemed position of 2024 artistic director.

A recipient of many awards and prizes, Anne is a former recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, awarded in 1993 when she was 23 years old.

As a pedagogue, Meyers joined the Butler School of Music at the University of Texas at Austin as Distinguished Artist and Professor of Violin. In December 2022, Meyers was named a new trustee of The Juilliard School and in 2023, she received an honorary doctorate from the Colburn School.