About this Artist

Akiko Tarumoto began her violin studies at age five. Her principal teachers have been Masao Kawasaki, Dorothy DeLay, and Glenn Dicterow. A native of Eastchester, New York, Tarumoto studied at the preparatory division of the Juilliard School and received her bachelor’s degree in English and American Literature with honors from Harvard University in 1998. In 2000, she received her Master of Music degree from the Juilliard School and joined the second violin section of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

In 2004, she was appointed to the first violin section of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Daniel Barenboim. While in Chicago, she performed on the Rush Hour and Chicago Symphony chamber series, at the Winter Chamber Music Festival at Northwestern University, and on the MusicNOW contemporary series.

Tarumoto returned to the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the fall of 2011 as a member of the second violin section and was appointed to fifth chair of the first violin section in March 2015. In January 2017, she was named Assistant Concertmaster. She is a frequent performer on the LA Phil’s Chamber Music and Green Umbrella series and has been featured as a soloist with the orchestra. Tarumoto has performed in the summer festivals of Aspen, Taos, and Spoleto (Italy). She has also appeared at the Mimir Festival in Fort Worth, Texas, and at the Chamber Music Festival of Lexington in Kentucky. Her husband is First Associate Concertmaster Nathan Cole.