After gaining her performance diploma on the modern cello at Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo, Mime Yamahiro Brinkmann specialised in historical performance on the violoncello and viola da gamba at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, graduating with a soloist diploma.
She was a prizewinner at the first ‘Concorso Internazionale Romano Romanini per strumenti ad arco’ (Brescia, Italy; chairman Gustav Leonhardt) in 1995 and the first cellist to win the soloist prize at the Concours Musica Antiqua Brugge (Belgium) in 1996. She is active as a soloist and as a member of leading early music groups worldwide, participating in tours, festivals, opera productions and recordings with La Petite Bande (Belgium), Bach Collegium Japan, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra (Canada), Apollo’s Fire, Joshua Rifkin & The Bach Ensemble and Seattle Baroque (USA), Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra, Concerto Copenhagen and Paul Hillier’s Theatre of Voices (Denmark) and Barokksolistene and Barokkanerne (Norway).
Mime Yamahiro Brinkmann also gives master classes and coaches orchestras at festivals around the world. She currently lives in Sweden, where she is a member of the Drottningholm Baroque Ensemble and teaches the baroque cello at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm.