Hayato Sumino

Born in 1995, Hayato Sumino won the Grand Prix of the Special Class of the PTNA Piano Competition while he was a graduate student at University of Tokyo in 2018. This was the start of his full-fledged musical career.

In 2021, he was a semi-finalist at the XVII International Chopin Piano Competition. In 2019, he won the third prize at the Lyon International Piano Competition, and in 2017, he won the gold medal at International Chopin Competition in Asia, and many other prizes. He has performed with: Hamburger Symphoniker, Dohnányi Orchestra Budafok, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, Kansai Philharmonic Orchestra, Gunma Symphony Orchestra, and FILARMONICA BRASOV. He studied with Jean- Marc Luisada, Katsuko Kaneko, and Tomoaki Yoshida.

He graduated from University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Information Science and Technology in March 2020, and received the University of Tokyo President’s Award. He has been engaged in research on music information processing at the Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music (IRCAM) for six months since September 2018.

Currently, in addition to performing concerts in Japan and aboard, he also writes, arranges, and performs his own music under the name of “Cateen” on YouTube, with over 1,000,000 subscribers and 100 million views (as of June 2022). His unique style, a fusion of classical techniques, arrangements, and improvisational skills, has been well received by many fans.

He has performed with orchestras in Hamburg and Budapest, and has given recitals in Paris, Vienna, Poland, and other cities to great acclaim. In December 2019, he held his first solo recital tour in five cities in Japan. In the following year, he made his debut at Suntory Hall, which tickets sold out on the day of release. In June 2021, he made his debut at Blue Note Tokyo. In 2022, his 9-city nationwide tour was held with its final performance at the Tokyo International Forum Hall A.

In December 2020, he released his first album “HAYATOSM” (eplus music), which won 8th place on Oricon daily chart. He played piano and arranged all the songs in the album “Sumi Shimamoto (character voice of Nausicaa) sings Ghibli Renewal Piano Version” (Warner).

Since 2021, he has been a CASIO electronic musical instrument ambassador and Steinway artist.

While building a solid position in classical music, he is attracting attention as a truly new type of pianist who carefully focuses on all music that beyond genres.