Kyōhei Sorita

Second place sounds like a consolation until you check the calendar. When Kyohei Sorita took second prize at the 2021 International Chopin Piano Competition, it was the best result for a Japanese-born pianist since Mitsuko Uchida finished second in 1970. Half a century of nobody getting that close. He earned it the unglamorous way, training at Toho in Japan and then studying at the Chopin University of Music in Warsaw, at the source rather than at a distance. What makes him unusual, though, is what he does off the keyboard. He conducts, and he runs a company as its representative director. Classical music in Japan mostly asks performers to perform and leave the economics to someone else; Sorita decided to build the business himself. That is a heavier thing to carry than a concert program, and I respect that he picked it up.

Name (English)

Kyōhei Sorita

Name (Japanese)

反田恭平

Born

September 1, 1994 (age 31)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Virgo / Dog

Origin

Sapporo, Hokkaidō, Japan

Occupation

pianist / businessperson / conductor / representative director

High school

Toho Girls' Junior and Senior High School

University

Chopin University of Music

Motto

Private

• Official sitehttps://www.kyoheisorita.com/
• Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/kyoheisorita/
• Xhttps://x.com/kyohei0901
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8F%8D%E7%94%B0%E6%81%AD%E5%B9%B3

Tags

• Hokkaidō
• pianist
• businessperson
• conductor

Last updated

2026-07-27

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.