Academy guitar student Tohi Harada was awarded The Musician's Company Prince’s Prize 2026. He qualified after receiving the Ivor Mairants Guitar Award in 2025, awarded to him for the performance of jazz-influenced music on the Classical Guitar. He follows five other recent student wins: Mabelle Park (Violin, 2025), Michael Ronan (Singer, 2024), Goncalo Maia Caetano (Guitar, 2023), Ariel Lanyi (Piano, 2018) and Ke Ma (Piano, 2015). Tohi follows in the footsteps of Academy alum Milos Karadaglic, who was the first guitarist to be presented with this award in 2007.
Tohi has enjoyed success at numerous international music competitions. After winning more than ten junior competitions, Tohi was awarded first prize at the East End International Guitar Competition (2019), which afforded him the opportunity to release his award-winning debut album, before commencing his studies at the Academy. Recent competition successes include the Albania International Guitar Competition, the Veria International Guitar Competition, the ‘Ida Presti’ International Guitar Competition, the Guitar Art International Competition and the Brussels International Guitar Competition.
Open to musicians under 35 years old worldwide, the Bad Tölz International String Quartet Competition promotes and supports outstanding young string quartets at the start of their international careers. With a jury chaired by violist Krzysztof Chorzelski and comprised of seven other esteemed musicians, five awards were presented to competitors on Sunday 12 April. Isla Quartet were awarded the €12,000 first prize as well as the €1,000 audience prize.
The Isla String Quartet features alumni musicians Mio Takahashi (violin), Kynan Walker (violin) and Danushka Edirisinghe (cello), alongside Royal College of Music alum Sofía Gómez Alberto (viola).
Since forming at the Academy, the quartet have been selected as participants in the Britten Pears Young Artists Scheme 2023-24 and as Tillet Debut Artists 2025. They were recently selected for the Tunnell Trust Music Club Award and look forward to a Scotland concert tour in 2027. Other competition successes include the Academy’s Nina Drucker Haydn String Quartet Competition (2024), the Royal College of Music Quartet Competition (2025) and as finalists at the Royal Over-Seas League Competition (2025).
The Academy offers congratulations to Tohi and the Isla Quartet for their successes and wishes them the best of luck in their future endeavours.