Born in 1983 in Kyoto, Japan, Yumiko Awano graduated from the Tokyo University of the Arts (GEIDAI) and continued her studies as a soloist at the Conservatoire de Lausanne, in the class of Pierre Amoyal. After winning the Third Prize at the Osaka International Music Competition two years in a row, she was awarded second place at the Japan Student Music Competition in Osaka. Then in 2002, Yumiko Awano was awarded the Kyoto Art Festival Mainichi Newspaper Company prize. She is also a laureate of the Niccolò-Paganini International Violin Competition in 2010 and the Sendai International Music Competition in 2011.

The violinist recorded an album in 2008 for Cascavelle, alongside the Camerata de Lausanne, a group she joined from 2006 to 2010 as a violinist and violist, before joining the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in 2011.

In 2016, she is invited as concertmaster of the Orchestre des Nations and in 2017 as solo violin of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra.