Search

    Hayato Sumino

    piano

    Vita

    Born in Tokyo in 1995, pianist Hayato Sumino currently commands some of the largest — and most far-reaching — social media audiences in the field of classical music. At the age of 13, he launched a YouTube channel under the name Cateen, which today counts 2.2 million followers. It features not only classical repertoire but his own compositions and improvisations as well. He received his training in Japan with Katsuko Kaneko and Tomoaki Yoshida and later studied in France with Jean-Marc Luisada. Alongside his musical studies, Sumino completed a degree in information science at the University of Tokyo, graduating with distinction in 2020 and receiving the President’s Award. In 2018, he spent six months at IRCAM in Paris, where he conducted research in the field of music information processing. Competition successes led him to devote himself fully to a career as a pianist: he won the Grand Prix at the PTNA Piano Competition in Japan in 2018, took third prize at the Concours International de Piano in Lyon in 2019, and reached the semi-finals of the Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 2021. Sumino now performs on the world’s leading stages, collaborating with such leading ensembles as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Tokyo Philharmonic, the NHK Symphony Orchestra, the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna, and the Bamberg Symphony. In the 2025-26 season, he made his debuts with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony, and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, followed in 2027 by his debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. His recitals have taken him to many of the world’s leading concert halls. An exclusive Sony Classical artist, Sumino released the album Human Universe in 2024, which earned him two Opus Klassik awards — for Newcomer of the Year and Best Solo Recording. In January 2026, he released Chopin Orbit, a program he also presents in his Lucerne Festival debut. He was awarded the Leonard Bernstein Award from the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival in 2025.

    May 2026