Sora Lavorgna was born in 2013 in Grasse, in the south of France, and holds both French and Japanese nationality. She began the violin at four in the Suzuki class at the Cannes Conservatory.
In 2022 she moved to the Nice Conservatory, where she studies with Pierre Bensaid, and she has more recently worked with Margarita Guerchovitch at the Monaco academy. She has taken masterclasses with Olivier Charlier and Maxim Vengerov, and attended the Musica Mundi programme in Waterloo, Belgium.
Her competition record began in 2021 with the 1st Special Prize at the FLAME competition in Paris, followed in 2022 by the 1st Grand Prize at the Arthur Grumiaux International Violin Competition in Belgium. National recognition came through the French television programme Prodiges, where she took first prize in the instrument category, judged by the cellist Gautier Capuçon, performing Max Richter's recomposition of Vivaldi's "Summer". Sources differ on the year: the Il Piccolo Violino Magico biography dates the prize to 2023, while Classic FM's coverage describes her as nine years old in the December final.
In 2024 she won the 1st Absolute Prize at the Kocian Violin Competition in the Czech Republic and second prize at the Andrea Postacchini competition in Italy. In 2026 she won First Prize at the Milan International Violin Competition and placed second at Il Piccolo Violino Magico.
She has appeared with orchestras in France, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and the Czech Republic, and performs duo concerts with her sister Cléa, also a violinist. She attends Henri Matisse Junior High School in Nice.
| Person | Country | Milestone | Age / Stat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sora Lavorgna | 🇫🇷 France | First Prize, Milan International Violin Competition, 2026 | Age 12 |
| Leia Zhu | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | International concert soloist from early childhood | Age 8 |
| Himari Yoshimura | 🇯🇵 Japan | Menuhin Competition junior first prize | Age 11 |
| Ziyu Shao | 🇨🇳 China | First prize, Gina Bachauer Young Artists, 2026 | Age 15 |
Sora Lavorgna matters because her record is cumulative rather than viral. Television gave her an audience at nine, but the prizes that count in her field — Grumiaux, Kocian, Milan, Piccolo Violino Magico — are decided by juries of working musicians who hear dozens of children a day. Winning across four countries and five years is the pattern that distinguishes a young player who will still be playing at thirty.
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