Hikaru Tamaki concertizes regularly as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral player in the US and Japan. He served as the principal cellist of the Fort Wayne Philharmonic and was a member of the Freimann String Quartet from 2001 until 2013. Solo performances with the Fort Wayne Philharmonic have included numerous major concertos in the cello repertoire. Tamaki was a prizewinner in the prestigious All Japan Viva Hall Cello Competition in 2000.

Tamaki is the founder of Duo YUMENO and regularly collaborates with koto/shamisen player, Yoko Reikano Kimura. The duo was awarded the Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Program grant in 2014, and received the Aoyama Baroque Saal Award in the following year.

From 2016, he has served as the principal cellist of the Berkshire Opera Festival and is also a member of the Albany Symphony Orchestra and the Allentown Symphony Orchestra. He has performed in such venues as Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space, Town Hall and Fisher Performing Arts Center.

Born in Kyoto, Tamaki’s studies in Japan were with Noboru Kamimura and Peter Seidenberg. Studies in the United States began at the Eastman School of Music, where he was named a George Eastman Scholar, and continued at Rice University and Northwestern University for his graduate degree. His teachers were Paul Katz and Hans Jorgen Jensen.