Silver medallist of the 2002 Tchaikovsky Violin Competition and first-prize winner of the 2001 Sarasate International Violin Competition, TAMAKI KAWAKUBO is a veteran of the concert stage. She has performed with such leading orchestras as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Rochester Philharmonic, the Naples Philharmonic, and the Detroit, Houston, Cincinnati, Baltimore, San Francisco, Syracuse, Tucson, and San Diego Symphonies.

After her collaboration with Michael Tilson Thomas and the New World Symphony in 2001/02, Kawakubo began her 2002/03 season in the U.S. with Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony in its opening concerts. Other recent engagements have included the Toledo Symphony, the Knoxville Symphony, and the Rhode Island Philharmonic, and a recital in West Palm Beach. She also performed numerous recitals in Spain in addition to performing throughout Japan with orchestras and in recital. Recent summers have been highlighted by Kawakubo's chamber music collaboration with Christoph Eschenbach at Germany's Schleswig-Holstein Festival. She performed with Eschenbach at Chicago's Ravinia Festival, where she had appeared previously in recital on the festival's "Rising Stars" series. She has also appeared at the Blossom Music Festival with the Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of Jahja Ling; performed at New York's Mostly Mozart Festival; toured Japan as soloist with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra and Gerard Schwartz conducting; and appeared with the Boston Pops and John Williams.

Winner of a 1997 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Tamaki Kawakubo began her violin studies at the age of five in Los Angeles. She studied with Robert Lipsett at the Colburn School of Performing Arts in Los Angeles and with Dorothy Delay and Masao Kawasaki at the Juilliard School.
She plays the 1707 "Cathedral" Stradivarius, on loan from the Mandell Collection of Southern California.