Pianist Mitsuko Uchida, who was born in Tokyo in 1948, began studying piano at the age of six. After her father was appointed Japanese ambassador to Austria, the family moved to Vienna, where she continued her musical education between 1961 and 1968 at the city’s Richard Hauser Music School. The path to an international career was opened by her successes in the ARD Competition in Munich in 1966, the Vienna Beethoven Competition in 1970, and the Pianoforte Competition in Leeds in 1975. In 1982 she performed all of Mozart’s piano sonatas at Wigmore Hall in London and was signed to record the entire cycle; a complete piano concerto cycle followed, with Uchida conducting the English Chamber Orchestra from the keyboard. In the 1990s, she turned her artistic focus to the music of Schubert and Schoenberg, and in more recent years she has devoted herself intensively to Beethoven’s oeuvre, especially the piano concertos and the late piano sonatas, which she has performed in many musical capitals. Mitsuko Uchida is a regular guest artist with the Vienna Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, and the Chicago Symphony, as well as with the London Symphony and the Philharmonia Orchestra. In the 2008-09 season, she has served as artist-in-residence with the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna’s Konzerthaus, and the Salzburg Mozart Weeks; she has also been concertizing at Carnegie Hall in New York and the Royal Festival Hall in London, while she appears at this season’s Salzburg Festival in chamber music concerts. Together with pianist Richard Goode, Mitsuko Uchida has been leading the Marlboro Festival in Vermont since 2000. Her expansive discography has been distinguished by numerous prizes: Her recording of Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto with the Cleveland Orchestra under Pierre Boulez alone garnered four awards, including the Gramophone Award.
LUCERNE FESTIVAL (IMF) debut on September 2, 1990 in Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto, with the Cleveland Orchestra under the baton of Christoph von Dohnányi. Last appearance here was on September 11, 2004 in a chamber music program with the Carmina Quartet, performing Schumann’s Piano Quintet.