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The Japanese-born English pianist and conductor, Dame Mitsuko Uchida, DBE (Japanese: 内田光子, [ɯtɕiꜜda miꜜtsɯ̥ko]), moved to Vienna, Austria, with her diplomat parents when she was 12 years old, after her father was named the Japanese ambassador to Austria. She enrolled at the Vienna Academy of Music to study with Richard Hauser, and later Wilhelm Kempff and Stefan Askenase, and remained in Vienna to study when her father was transferred back to Japan after five years. She gave her first Viennese recital at the age of 14 at the Vienna Musikverein. She also studied with Maria Curcio, the last and favourite pupil of Artur Schnabel. In 1969 she won the first prize in the Beethoven Competition in Vienna and in 1970 the second prize in the International Chopin Piano Competition. In 1975, she won second prize in the Leeds Piano Competition.
A deeply intelligent and sensitive pianist, Mitsuko Uchida has built up a reputation as a superlative performer of the works of W.A. Mozart, L.v. Beethoven, Schubert, Robert Schumann, Frédéric Chopin and Debussy and. Her devotion to Alban Berg and Arnold Schoenberg has illuminated the piano music of these two composers and their place within the central repertoire. She has a long history of performing with the world’s most respected orchestras - Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Berliner Philharmoniker, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Bayerischer Rundfunk Symphonieorchester, London Symphony Orchestra and London Philharmonic Orchestra and recently celebrated her 100th concert with the Cleveland Orchestra. She has worked with many renowned conductors including Gustavo Dudamel, Bernard Haitink, Mariss Jansons, Vladimir Jurowski, Riccardo Muti, Andris Nelsons, Sir Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Kurt Sanderling. She has also conducted several major orchestras.
Mitsuko Uchida has recorded a wide repertoire with several labels. Currently she records exclusively for Decca. She has recorded all of W.A. Mozart's piano sonatas (a project that won the Gramophone Award in 1989), and concerti, the latter with the English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Jeffrey Tate. Her recording of the A. Schoenberg's Piano Concerto with Pierre Boulez won another Gramophone Award. She is further noted for her recordings of L.v. Beethoven's complete piano concerti with Kurt Sanderling conducting, L.v. Beethoven's late piano sonatas, and a Schubert piano cycle. She is also respected as a distinguished interpreter of the works of the Second Viennese School. She has appeared with many notable orchestras, , won numerous awards and honours (see below). Her 2009 recording of the W.A. Mozart's piano concertos Nos. 23 and 24, in which she conducted the Cleveland Orchestra as well as playing the solo part, won the Grammy Award in 2011. This recording was the start of a project to record all the W.A. Mozart's piano concertos for a second time, conducting the Cleveland Orchestra from the piano. Further recordings for this project were released in 2011, 2012 and 2014.
From 2002 to 2007, Mitsuko Uchida was artist-in-residence for the Cleveland Orchestra, where she led performances of all of W.A. Mozart's solo piano concertos. She has also conducted the English Chamber Orchestra, from the keyboard. In 2010, she was artist-in-residence for the Berliner Philharmoniker. She was senior artist at the Marlboro Music School and Festival in 1974 and 1992, and has been permanently associated with Marlboro since 1994 when she became a member of the Committee for Artistic Direction. In 1998 she was the Music Director of the Ojai Music Festival in conjunction with conductor and violinist, David Zinman. In 1999 she became one of two Artistic Directors along with fellow pianist Richard Goode. Since 2013 she has been sole Artistic Director, the only musician to be its sole Artistic Director since co-founder Rudolf Serkin. Since 2016, she is an Artistic Partner of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, with whom she is embarking on a five-year touring project taking in venues across Europe and North America. She also appears regularly in recital in Vienna, Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, London, New York and Tokyo, and is a regular guest at the Salzburg Mozartwoche and Salzburg Festival.
Mitsuko Uchida is also a founding trustee of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust, an organisation established to help young artists develop and sustain international careers. In May 2012, the Royal Philharmonic Society announced that she would be honoured with their Gold Medal (she received the society's annual Music Award in 2003); previous recipients have included Johannes Brahms (1877), Frederick Delius and Sir Edward Elgar (1925), Richard Strauss (1936), Igor Stravinsky (1954), Benjamin Britten and Leonard Bernstein (1987). |
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1986: Suntory Music Award
1989: Gramophone Award for Best Instrumental Recording, for her set of the complete Piano Sonatas of W.A. Mozart.
2001: Appointed Honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2001 New Year Honours. At the time, the award was honorary because she was not yet a citizen of the UK.
2001: Gramophone Award for Best Concerto Recording, for her recording of the piano concerto of A. Schoenberg (with Pierre Boulez conducting)
2008: In April, BBC Music Magazine presented her its Instrumentalist of the Year and Disc of the Year awards.
2009: She was promoted to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2009 Queen's Birthday Honours. On this occasion, the award was substantive, as she had become a British citizen.
2009: In June, she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Music (DMus) degree by the University of Oxford during Encaenia 2009.
2011: Grammy award for Best Instrumental Soloist(s) Performance (with orchestra) for her recording of W.A. Mozart's Piano Concerti No. 23 K. 488 and No. 24 K. 491 with the Cleveland Orchestra, which she conducted from the keyboard.
2012: in May, Uchida was awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal, one of the highest honours in classical music.
2014: Honorary Degree from the University of .
2015: in January, Uchida was awarded the Gold Medal of the Foundation (Stiftung) of the Mozarteum University of Salzburg
2015: Praemium Imperiale, awarded by the imperial family of Japan
2017: Grammy Award for the Best Classical Solo Vocal Album (as accompanist) with Dorothea Röschmann. |
