Yuko Hisamoto (Japan)


Yuko Hisamoto earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in piano at Tokyo University of the Arts. The orchestras and ensembles she has performed with include ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Latvian National Symphony Orchestra, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, New Japan Philharmonic, Salon Orchestra Alt-Wien, and Berlin String Quartet.

Her performance is highly acclaimed for her artistic intellect and sensibilities, delicacy and dynamism. Asahi Shimbun once featured in a column, Vox populi vox dei her lecture recital, a format to approach the music from various angles.

As an owner of such original instruments as Bösendorfer (1829), Pleyel (1843), Erard (1868), Broadwood (1920), she frequently uses them for concerts and recordings in pursuit of the sound and aesthetics that composers intended in their times.

In 2010, the bicentenary of Chopin’s birth, she traveled throughout Japan playing on Pleyel. She had the honor of their majesties the Emperor and Empress in attendance when she performed at Karuizawa Ohga Hall in Japan. A photo of her recital in Vienna in 2011 appeared on the cover of an Austrian piano journal ”Weinberger”. She is the only Japanese pianist who is given a title of Bösendorfer Artist.

In 2013, Kunitachi College of Music celebrated its 90th anniversary, for which she gave a lecture concert, a piano project organized by its Collection for Organology, playing five different historical instruments. She also appeared in a concert titled Pianos at the dawn of a new era - Pleyel, Shantz and Broadwood at Suntory Hall, Blue Rose in Tokyo in 2014.
 

 


Her recitals in 2012 and 2014 at the invitation of International Mozart Festival in Italy were broadcast across Italy and warmly welcomed. Reinvited for the 3rd time, she is to perform in the fall of 2017.

She is a two-time winner of Mainichi 21st Century Prize, which awarded her with an opportunity to study business administration at JAIMS (Japan-America Institute of Management Science) in Hawaii, graduating with honors. Simultaneously, she learned music production at Honolulu Symphony Orchestra.

Her performance may be heard in 16 CDs released thus far. Mozart Piano Sonatas K.331, 333 was a choice CD of the Mainichi Shimbun and a CD of the month of Record Geijutsu. Among other favorable reviews on Beethoven’s works; Therese Sonata, Waldstein Sonata, Gramophone magazine commented, “the best possible Beethoven from every aspect ”.

She is the author of Research on Mozart’s Piano Music (Ongaku No Tomo), How Did Mozart Play (Maruzen), Mozart Piano Sonatas Urtext Edition (Artes Publishing), Mozart and Walter Piano, Chopin and Pleyel Piano, Listz and Bösendorfer Piano (Gakken Plus), and many others.

Currently, Hisamoto is a professor of Kunitachi College of Music, Bösendorfer artist, director of Japan-Latvia Music Society, councilor of PTNA (Piano Teachers’ National Association of Japan)