Kana Aihara is an emerging violinist of Japanese origin from the US. She is currently studying her Bachelor of Music at the Royal College of Music with Radu Blidar. She was a scholarship fellow at the Music Institute of Chicago’s Academy before graduating, where she was under the tutelage of Almita Vamos.
 
Kana had her debut as a soloist with Minnesota Sinfonia and the Gustavus Symphony Orchestra as the winner of their concerto competitions. In 2019, 2022 and 2023 she was a finalist in the Schubert Club Scholarship Competition and in 2022 a finalist of the Minnesota Orchestra’s Young People’s Symphony Concert Association's (YPSCA) Concerto Competition.

Kana is an avid chamber musician and has studied chamber music since she was 12, at the St. Paul Chamber Music Academy and then at the Music Institute of Chicago’s Academy. During the Summer of 2021 and 2022, she played in chamber groups in the Interlochen Advanced Quartet Program and at the St. Paul Chamber Music Institute.
As a member of the Alsephina String Quartet she won 1st place in 2022 at the St. Paul Chamber Music Competition, as well as a bronze medal with her Calcifer String Quartet in 2023 at the St. Paul String Quartet. Additionally, the Calcifer String Quartet advanced to the quarterfinals of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. In 2024, Kana collaborated with the Brodsky String Quartet in a performance of Beethoven’s Grosse Fuga at the Royal College of Music, and is currently part of the Apollo Quartet, actively engaging in various chamber repertoire and working with renowned quartets such as the Sacconi Quartet.

Kana has received chamber music coaching from esteemed chamber musicians including Tom Rosenberg, Paul Katz, the Jasper String Quartet, and the Jupiter String Quartet.

Kana is also a prosperous orchestral musician. She took part in projects at the Royal College of Music and across London under the batons of Chloé van Soeterstède, Sir Andrew Davis, Nicholas Daniel and Toby Purser. Previously, she has studied orchestral works as a member of the Minnesota Youth Symphonies from 2013-2019, and in the summers of 2021 and 2022, in the World Youth Symphony Orchestra at Interlochen Center for the Arts on full scholarship, under the guidance of conductors such as Cristian Mâcelaru, Tito Muñoz, Roderick Cox, and Christian Reif.

She has studied with Almita Vamos, Detlef Hahn, Stephanie Arado, Mikhail Kopelman, Grigory Kalinovsky, Ilya Kaler, Donald Weilerstein, and Robert Lipsett.