Anne Akiko Meyers

Anne Akiko Meyers stands out among American violinists for the breadth of recognition she has received since childhood. Appearances at landmark venues including the Hollywood Bowl, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center, together with leading figures such as Kristjan Jarvi, Gerard Schwarz, and Gustavo Dudamel, have placed her before major orchestras and fellow performers around the globe. While she remains firmly rooted in core repertoire, Meyers has become increasingly identified as an advocate for contemporary works. Numerous albums have entered the Billboard Classical chart at the top position, and her interpretations receive regular airplay on classical stations as well as prominent streaming services.

California-born, Meyers took up the violin at four. Three years later she appeared as soloist with a regional community ensemble and soon afterward enrolled at the Colburn School of Performing Arts in Los Angeles. Her 1981 debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic followed an appearance on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show, the first of many broadcast performances throughout her career. At twelve she performed with the New York Philharmonic. Advanced study brought her into contact with distinguished American teachers, beginning with Josef Gingold at Indiana University and continuing, from age fourteen, with Dorothy DeLay, Felix Galimir, and Masao Kawasaki at the Juilliard School. By eighteen she had recorded the Barber and Bruch concertos for Canyon Classics. Before receiving her Juilliard diploma in 1990, she secured an exclusive contract with RCA and launched an intensive touring schedule. In 1993 she was awarded the Avery Fisher Career Grant.

Although her eight RCA projects centered on Romantic repertoire, later releases during that period introduced the Prokofiev concertos and twentieth-century American sonatas, signaling a deepening commitment to newer music. Close collaboration with Joseph Schwantner produced the concerto Angelfire, which she introduced in 2002; the same year she premiered and recorded Somei Satoh’s violin concerto. Subsequent partnerships have yielded additional concertos and recital works from composers both inside and outside the classical sphere, among them Wynton Marsalis, who supplied cadenzas for Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3 in 2009. Mason Bates’s Violin Concerto received its first performance from Meyers in 2012, the year her album Air: The Bach Album became her initial Billboard Classical chart-topper. Two years later her recording of The Four Seasons earned Billboard’s designation as top-selling traditional classical instrumental soloist and marked the first appearance on disc of the 1741 “Ex-Vieuxtemps” Guarneri del Gesù, entrusted to her for lifelong use. By 2020 she had issued dozens of recordings, most of those issued after the mid-2010s incorporating at least one newly composed work. In 2021 she introduced Arturo Márquez’s mariachi-inspired concerto Fandango with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic as well as with Giancarlo Guerrero and the Seattle Symphony. The jazzy album Shining Night appeared in spring 2022, and Michael Daugherty’s Blue Electra, inspired by Amelia Earhart, is scheduled for premiere with Gianandrea Noseda and the National Symphony Orchestra in fall 2022.