Biography

Marie Sato is a flautist from London, and is currently co-principal flute of Jyväskylä Sinfonia in Finland, since August 2023. From August 2025, she will take up the position of co-principal flute in Stavanger Symphony Orchestra. She has performed as guest principal with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Stavanger Symphony Orchestra and Turku Philharmonic Orchestra and has also freelanced with orchestras such as the London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra and Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

She is currently studying with Yuki Koyama and Petri Alanko at the Sibelius Academy for her master’s degree, where her studies are being supported by a Finland Scholarship. She was also part of the London Philharmonic Orchestra Foyle Future Firsts Professional Development Programme 2022/23. In 2022, she graduated from the Royal College of Music with First Class Honours, where she studied with Adam Walker, Stewart McIlwham and Gitte Marcusson. During her time at the RCM, she was a Douglas and Hilda Simmonds Scholar, and won the RCM All Flutes Plus Flute Prize. Previously, she was a student at the RCM Junior Department, where she won first prize in numerous competitions there, including the Peter Morrison Concerto Competition, and performed the Liebermann Flute Concerto with the Junior Department Symphony Orchestra.

She was the winner of the Wind and Brass category at the 2021 Royal Over-Seas League Annual Music Competition. In 2018, she won the Royal Philharmonic Society-Duet Prize for Young Instrumentalists, and was a woodwind category finalist in both the 2016 and 2018 BBC Young Musician competitions.