Rei Sakurai

Rei Sakurai has been working as a staff accompanist at the Baldwin Wallace Conservatory of Performing Arts since fall 2006.

Born in Japan, Sakurai began studying the violin at the age of five and the piano at the age of eleven. Her range of interests in music was wide. She was awarded first prize in song composition at the Japan Junior High School Competition.

She studied with Ludmila Lazar and received her Bachelor's in piano performance at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. She also studied the violin with Cyrus Forough and Yuko Mori. While in Chicago, she performed with vocal students of Dimpna Clarin, Eileen Deneen and Michael Best. At DePaul University, she played for a violin student of Joseph Genualdi. In addition to playing the piano, she was also a local church organist.

While studying for her Master's in piano performance, she decided to transfer to Cleveland Institute of Music to study collaborative piano with Anita Pontremoli. She often played for students of Michael Sachs (trumpet), Steven Witzer (trombone), Jeffrey Irvine (viola) and Franklin Cohen (clarinet).

She has worked as a staff accompanist and a piano instructor at the Music Settlement as well as a staff accompanist at Cleveland Institute of Music after receiving her Master's in collaborative piano.

She played with Yoko Moore, a former Cleveland Orchestra violinist, at a ceremony held at The Japanese School of Cleveland. She also played with George Pope (flute) and Sean Gabriel (flute) as GPS Trio on WCLV.

Privately she has been teaching piano for 18 years and violin for 9 years. Her violin students have included members of the Contemporary Youth Orchestra and the Northern Ohio Youth Orchestra. She has been 1st violin of the Suburban Symphony Orchestra since September 2023.