Vive Chopin!
Riga Piano Season
Riga Debut
Wednesday, 2008 April 16th, 7 PM
Black Head House
Makoto Ueno (piano, Japan)
Program: Chopin – 24 Preludes
Mussorgsky –Pictures at an Exhibition
Balakirev – Islamey
Makoto Ueno is one of Japan’s most versatile upcoming pianists. Known for profound interpretations and thrilling technique, he is hailed by critics as a master musician capable of being “poetic and brilliant, sensitive and bold, spontaneous and well-planned”. The late Jorge Bolet considered him “one of the most gifted pianists of his generation” and “a pianist of highest calibre”.
In June 2005 he won Second Prize at the First Sviatoslav Richter International Piano Competition in Moscow. Though considered as a ‘marvellous discovery’ by the jury members, he had previously won prizes at various other international competitions such as Maryland (1985); Brussels (Prix Alex de Vries, Prix. E.M.S., 1986); Geneva (1988); Orléans (Prix Maurice Ohana, Prix Ricardo Vines, Prix Nadia et Lili Boulanger, 2002); In Japan, he was a recipient of Kyoto City Prize for New Artists, and of the Aoyama Barocksaal Prize, in 2005.
A graduate of the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music, he studied with Jorge Bolet, Gary Graffman, Mieczyslaw Horszowski and Leon Fleisher continuing In the Mozarteum Salzburg with Hans Leygraf and Jacob Lateiner. He began his earliest musical training at the age of four in Muroran, followed by studies with Meiko Miyazawa in Tokyo.
An active soloist with Orchestras, Makoto Ueno appeared with the Shinsei-Japan Orchestra (Grieg), Japan Philharmonic (Schumann), Orchestra Kanazawa (Mozart No. 25), Sapporo Symphony Orchestra (Brahms No. 2), Osaka Symphoniker (Tchaikovsky), Kyoto Symphony Orchestra (Bartok No.2), Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra (Messiaen Oiseaux exotiques), and Zürcher Kammerorchester (Mozart No. 27).
Makoto Ueno has given recitals in the U.S.A., Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Belgium, Holland and Asia with programmes featureding Beethoven’s Hammerklaviersonate, Liszt’s complete Transcendental Etudes, Debussy 12 Etudes and various 20th-century piano music. An active accompanist and chamber musician he appears regularly with soloists and chamber groups such as Hans Gansch, Emily Beynon, and the Talich String Quartet.
Although he usually plays modern grand pianos, Ueno is equally at home with historical instruments, performing Beethoven sonatas on a Stein fortepiano from 1820, Chopin’s 24 etudes on a Pleyel of 1846 (in 2004 and 2005) as well as Viennese Classical Works on a 1780’s Stein replica model and historical 1846 Streicher instruments, and works by Liszt, Balakirew and Debussy on Erard instruments from 1852 and 1920 (in 2005 and 2006).
Recent recording activities include a concert at the NHK televised live in Spring 2006 with future broadcasts in the next three years; a CD of the Liszt Transcendental Etudes appeared in 2004, a new CD with the complete etudes by Debussy, Bartók, and the Three Movements from Pétrouchka by Stravinsky, is due in October 2006.
Forthcoming engagements this season include concerts with the Kyoto Philharmonic (Shostakovitch No. 1), Sapporo Symphony(Rachmaninoff No. 3), and a recital tour of Japan. Since 1996, he has been teaching as a piano faculty member at Kyoto University of Arts; in addition to his teaching and performing activities, he has written articles and essays for various Japanese music magazines. An avid photographer of numerous genres, he has future plans to make his photographs of historic Japanese temples and monuments around Kyoto and Nara accessible to public through internet. |
