Mitsuko Uchida (b. 1948)

Mitsuko Uchida, a thoughtful and iconoclastic pianist, was born in Tokyo 20th December 1948. She began her studies in piano during childhood. Her parents, who were diplomats, moved to Austria when Uchida was 12, and she enrolled at the Vienna Academy of Music. Even at this young age, Uchida rebelled against the conventional wisdom her teachers tried to impart. She wished to exercise her own judgment in performance, and the Academy did not want to let her. Judges at competitions, on the other hand, liked her judgment, giving her the second prize at the Beethoven Competition in 1968 and another second prize at the prestigous Chopin Competition in 1970. Uchida, however, was dissatisfied with her playing and retired from the competition circuit.

She is a performer who brings to her audiences a deep insight into the music she plays through her own search for truth and beauty. She is renowned for her interpretations of Mozart and Schubert, 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 and her recording of the Schoenberg Piano Concerto with Pierre Boulez and the Cleveland Orchestra won four awards, including The Gramophone Award for Best Concerto.

"Mitsuko Uchida follows her acclaimed first disc of Beethoven Sonatas with the Hammerklavier Sonata - considered to be Beethoven's most complex and challenging piano composition. A key work of the repertory from 'One of today's great pianists'" The Times

"No pianist conveys the rapture of Mozart quite like Mitsuko Uchida does. Inward-looking moments of repose positively levitate under her fingers. On the turn of a single note, she can achieve a kind of weightlessness that can still an entire hall. On the surface of it, it's a question of what pianists might call "touch", but, on a deeper level, Uchida understands better than most the mystical correlation between simplicity and purity in Mozart." The Independent

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 Co-director, with Richard Goode, of the Marlboro Music Festival.