Violinist Yasuka Schmalhofer was born into a family of musicians in Yokohama. After graduating from Toho Gakuen High School of Music, she came to Germany, where she completed her bachelor and master studies with Prof. Herwig Zack at the University of Music Wuerzburg. Her other teachers include Prof. Masayuki Kino, Prof. Sachika Mizuno and Prof. Natsumi Tamai. Further musical impulses came from master classes with Christian Altenburger, Pierre Amoyal, Tanja Becker-Benda, Roland Daugareil, Ivry Gitlis, Bernd Glemser, Vadim Gluzman, Barnabás Kelemen, Igor Ozim, Régis Pasquier, the Cuarteto Latinoamericano, the Juilliard String Quartet and the Voces Quartet.
Yasuka Schmalhofer has won prizes in numerous competitions, including the International Max Rostal Competition, the international »Premio Rodolfo Lipizer«, the International Instrumental Competition Markneukirchen, the international competition of Konzertverein Ingolstadt and the competition of the Deutscher Musikinstrumentenfonds.
As a soloist, she has performed with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, the Moldova Philharmonic Iasi and the Kanagawa Philharmonic Orchestra. At the Lux Music Festival, at the »Mozartfeschtle« in Augsburg and at the Kulturkreis Oberursel she performed as a chamber musician. She has also taught at the master class Międzynarodowa Akademia Muzyczna.
In 2018 Yasuka Schmalhofer was a scholarship student of the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne. She has played in international orchestras such as the orchestra of Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz, the Gstaad Festival Orchestra and the Munich Radio Orchestra. Since August 2019, she is among the first violinists of the Munich Philharmonic.
