Mitsuko Uchida

 

Profile

Mitsuko Uchida is a performer who brings a deep insight into the music she plays through her own search for truth and beauty. Born in Japan but now based in London, her home since 1972, she first came to Europe in 1961 when her father, a Japanese diplomat, was posted there. She entered the Vienna Music Academy, continuing her studies there even after her family moved from the country. She is renowned for her interpretations of Mozart, Schubert, Schumann and Beethoven, both in the concert hall and on CD, but she has also illuminated the music of Berg, Schönberg, Webern and Boulez for a new generation of listeners. She has demonstrated a long-standing commitment to aiding the development of young musicians, and is a trustee of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust and Director of the Marlboro Music Festival. Uchida performs with the world’s finest orchestras and musicians but is perhaps most closely associated with the Berlin Philharmonic and the Cleveland Orchestra. She is due to perform again in the Suntory Hall in Tokyo in November after an absence of two years.

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Mitsuko Uchida is a performer who brings a deep insight into the music she plays through her own search for truth and beauty. Born in Japan but now based in London, her home since 1972, she first came to Europe in 1961 when her father, a Japanese diplomat, was posted there. She entered the Vienna Music Academy, continuing her studies there even after her family moved from the country.

  She is renowned for her interpretations of Mozart, Schubert, Schumann and Beethoven, both in the concert hall and on CD, but she has also illuminated the music of Berg, Schoenberg, Webern and Boulez for a new generation of listeners. “To decipher what these composers of the past and present have written on pieces of paper ― this is the starting point for us performers.” By “making conversations” with the composers through the scores, she tries to understand what those composers wanted to express.

  Mitsuko Uchida performs with the world’s finest orchestras and musicians. Some highlights from recent years include her Artist-in-Residency at the Cleveland Orchestra, where she directed all the Mozart concerti from the keyboard over a number of seasons. She has also been the focus of a Carnegie Hall Perspectives series entitled ‘Mitsuko Uchida: Vienna Revisited.’ She has featured in the Concertgebouw’s Carte Blanche series where she collaborated with Ian Bostridge, the Hagen Quartet, Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra as well as directing from the piano a performance of Schönberg’s Pierrot Lunaire. Uchida has also been Artist-in-Residence at the Vienna Konzerthaus, Salzburg Mozartwoche, Lucerne Festival and with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, with whom she performed a series of chamber music concerts and a Beethoven Piano Concerti cycle with Sir Simon Rattle.

  She says, “Maybe that is because I am a single-minded person who has no other interest other than music. Life is too short. If anybody offered to give me anything, I would say I want to have more time so that I can hear more music, and think about music.”

  Mitsuko Uchida has demonstrated a long-standing commitment to aiding the development of young musicians and is a trustee of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust. She is also Director of the Marlboro Music Festival. In May 2012 she was awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Gold Medal and in June 2009 she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. She has received various Honorary Degrees including from The Juilliard School, the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge. In 2015 Mitsuko Uchida was awarded the Golden Mozart Medal at the Salzburg Mozartwoche.

  This November will see her return to perform again in Tokyo’s Suntory Hall after an absence of two years.

Biography

  1948 Born in Atami, Shizuoka, Japan
  1961 Moved to Vienna, Austria
Studied at the Vienna Academy of Music under Richard Hauser (1968 graduated)
  1963 First Viennese recital at the Vienna Musikveren
  1969 First prize in the Beethoven Competition in Vienna
  1970 Second prize in the International Chopin Piano Competition
  1972 Moved to London
  1975 Second prize in the Leeds International Pianoforte Competition
  1982 A series of concerts of the complete Mozart sonatas in London and Tokyo
(1991 in New York)
  1984 Debut with Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Seiji Ozawa
  1986-87 Directed all 21 piano concertos in a series of concerts with the English Chamber Orchestra (in Tokyo)
  1986 Minister of Education Award for Fine Arts in Japan
  1988 Gold Disc Awards “Album of the Year” in Japan
  2005 Japan Art Academy Prize
“Person of Cultural Merit” in Japan
  2009 Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire
  2011 Grammy Awards for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance
  2012 Royal Philharmonic Society’s Gold Medal
  2014 Honorary Degree from the University of Cambridge
  2015 Golden Mozart Medal at the Salzburg Mozartwoche