Shoko Kawasaki - VISIONS I Dream Dream - Japan CD

Credits:

Shoko Kawasaki

Description:

Was it, after all, a beautiful and fleeting vision... "Once released into the air, the sound of the piano simply vanishes. That is what makes it so beautiful and so fleeting." - Shoko Kawasaki The pianist Shoko Kawasaki's first solo album, built around the theme of "dreams", in which she gathers together everything she feels about the piano and about music itself. Born in Tokyo. After attending Tokyo Metropolitan Ueno High School, she graduated from the Faculty of Music (Instrumental Studies) of the Tokyo University of the Arts and completed her master's degree there at the head of her class, receiving the Kreutzer Prize. In 2014 she completed her doctorate, receiving a PhD in music for her dissertation "Performance practice in the complete eighteen Études pour piano of György Ligeti" and a recital programme of Brahms, Schumann and Ligeti. During her studies she was selected as an exchange student at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München, where in 2016 she completed both the contemporary music course and the Meisterklasse soloist diploma (Konzertexamen). She has won prizes at the Pollino and Massarosa international competitions (both in Italy), the Kazuko Yasukawa Memorial Competition and the Japan Music Competition, among others. Other distinctions include a special prize from the Musikpreis des Kulturkreis Gasteig (Germany), diplomas at the Geneva International Competition (Switzerland) and the Grieg International Competition (Norway), semi-finalist at the Dorothy Mackenzie Awards (USA), and participation in the New York International Music Festival. Since 2008 she has given Yamaha's "Piano Salon Concerts: Great Works and Conversation" series throughout Japan. In 2013 she became the first artist in Japan to receive the Gratia Music Award. In 2016 the label N.A.T. released her CD "Memories of Kreutzer" nationwide, chosen as a Runner-up Selection by Record Geijutsu magazine; the same year she was appointed promotion manager for the Henle Library app of G. Henle Verlag. She has appeared at contemporary music festivals in Europe, the United States, Asia and Cuba, and has broadcast for ARD/Bayerischer Rundfunk. Her teachers have included Rie Fukano, Sumiko Mikimoto, Michiko Ta, Saori Ta, Gabriel Tacchino, Susumu Aoyagi and Michael Schäfer, and she has also received guidance from Jacques Rouvier, Einar Steen-Nøkleberg, Andrea Bonatta, R. Remoli, Mikhail Voskresensky, Vladimir Tropp and Andreas Groethuysen. From 2006 to 2011 she was a teaching assistant in the Graduate School of Music of the Tokyo University of the Arts. She has held scholarships from the Rohm Music Foundation, the Honjo International Scholarship Foundation, the Oscar und Vera Ritter-Stiftung and the Deutschlandstipendium. As of 2017 she lives in Germany and teaches as a part-time lecturer in the piano department of the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München.