Chihiro Ono
小野 智尋
violin + viola x Music x ARTs
@Kevin Leighton
She plays J.B.Guadagnini 1766 (violin), A.Guastalla 1920 (viola) and J.Pawlikowski 2008 (baroque violin).
I began my musical journey at the age of 8 months with copying violin playing with two chopsticks before I could even walk/talk.
At the age of 9, I wrote "I want to master Music". I chose especially music and violin as a tool for exploring human, space, time and sounds.
As my first name Chihiro's " 智尋 " meaning is "searching for wisdom", I am on that journey since.
A Japanese-born, London-based violinist and violist, Chihiro Ono is specialising in Music, from medieval, baroque, classical, contemporary, new, experimental music, and folkloric, noise, improvisation, field recording to art of sounds.
As a violinist and violist for life, Chihiro has built a distinctly collaborative career performing internationally with esteemed ensembles and composers, such as Apartment House, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, CHROMA (UK), Ensemble Modern (DE), Klangforum Wien (AT), Royal Opera House and London Symphony Orchestra's Composer Scheme programmes' players, London Mozart Players, Octandre Ensemble, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (UK) and Tokyo Symphony Orchestra (JP) etc, with classics and contemporary composers such as Georges Aperghis, Peter Ablinger, Friedrich Cerha, Shasha Chen, Bushra El-Truk, Péter Eötvös, Brian Ferneyhough, Helmut Lachenmann, Brigitta Muntendorf, Steve Reich, Du Yun, Rufus Isabel Elliot and more, at the established venues and festivals in worldwide such as Aldeburgh Festival, Prussia Cove Open Chamber Music (UK), Salzburg Festival, Wiener Festwochen (AT), Sacrum+profanum (PL), Donauenshinger Musiktag, Darmstadt, ECLAT, E.v.Siemens Musikstiftung (DE), Festival d”Autumne a Paris (FR), Barbican Hall, Cafe Oto, South Bank Center halls, Wigmore Hall (UK), Schoenberg Centre (AT), Berlin Philharmonie, Frankfurt Alte Oper, Philharmonic Koln (DE), Teatro Coliseo (AR), Suntory Hall, Takemitsu Hall, Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre (JP) and Carnegie Hall / Zankel Hall (USA).
As an educator, she has been giving workshop for composers at educational institutions, such as Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Goldsmith University of London, King’s College London, London Symphony Orchestra’s Composer Scheme programmes, Royal College of Music, Royal Holloway University of London (UK), Rice University (USA) and Tokyo College of Music (JP).
Since 2013 to the present, alongside of professional activities in Performing Arts as a violinist / violist, Chihiro has increasingly carved out space as a sound artist, instrument player and a collaborative creator / collective leader, across live performance, theatre, radio and film with esteemed groups such as ARCO, Forced Entertainment, Oedipa, Waste Paper Opera (UK) and Ictus x Quissi (BE).
Since 2018, she has also been receiving commissions occasionally to compose music with her violin, electronic, sound with AI, filed recordings and objects. In 2026, developed through Sound and Music’s In Motion 2024/25, she has finally and officially announced herself also as an experimental composer, alongside her main profession as a violinist and violist.
The album “Chihiro Ono with In Motion / Sound and Music” (released in October 2025) is offering listeners an intimate first glimpse into this evolving sound world, that closely documents a period in which Chihiro deep-dived into ethnology, folklore, science, philosophy and sound to begin shaping a personal compositional voice alongside her long-established life as a performer (see the full interview at “Chihiro Ono: In Motion (Q&A)” published in February 2026).