MITO QUARTET

MITO QUARTET

Established in conjunction with the opening of the Concert Hall at Art Tower Mito in April 1990, the Mito Quartet has been busy ever since as ATM's home quartet. Composed of some of the top chamber musicians in the whole country -- Koichiro Harada (violin), Mie Kobayashi (violin), Yasushi Toyoshima (viola), Hakuro Mori (cello), all of whom are also members of the ATM ENSEMBLE -- the group's outstanding ensemble ability and its refined musical sense have been topics of conversation since its early days.

The group has already given 13 concerts at Art Tower Mito, captivating audiences with a broad repertoire that extends from Josef Haydn (1732-1809) to modern composers. Its performance series of the six String Quartets by Bartók (1881-1945) especially received high praise. The Mito Quartet has also performed successfully elsewhere in Japan, such as at the Casals Hall in Tokyo, the Shonandai Culture Center in Fujisawa, and the Nova Hall in Tsukuba. In 1995, it put in an appearance at the Saito Kinen Festival in Matsumoto.

The group has welcomed many excellent musicians for joint performances, including Akiyoshi Sako, Ikuyo Nakamichi, Hiroko Nakamura, Takashi Hironaka, Ken Wakabayshi, Shigeo Neriki, Ikuyo Kamkya, Masao Kawasaki, Masaharu Yamamoto, and Kazuko Nagai.

MEMBER PROFILES:

Koichiro Harada (violin)
Having formed the Tokyo Quartet in 1969 and playing the first violin in that group for a dozen years, Mr. Harada has always been at the forefront of chamber music in Japan. He is now actively engaged as an educator, producing the NADA series of chamber music, teaching students as a professor at the Toho Gakuen College of Music, and teaching at the Aspen Music Festival. He has also started conducting in the past few years, leading the New Japan Philharmonic, the Kioi Sinfonietta and other groups to great acclaim.

Mie Kobayashi (violin)
Placing second in the 1988 Spohr Violin Competition (Concours International de Violon Ludwig Spohr), as well as becoming the first Japanese to win the Long-Thibaud Violin Competition (Concours International de Piano et Violon Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud), Ms. Kobayashi belongs to the younger generation of active violinists. In April 1991, she gave a solo recital at Art Tower Mito. In 1994 and 1995, then, she performed a recital series at the Casals Hall in Tokyo, receiving great critical acclaim. She has already put out three CDs of violin music.

Yasushi Toyoshima (viola)
Mr. Toyoshima plays both the violin and viola, and is engaged both as a soloist and as a member of such ensembles as the Halley String Quartet. In 1991, he won the Minister of Education Artistic Selection Prize for a recital of concerti that he planned himself. He has been enthusiastically involved in recitals and recordings since that time.

Hakuro Mori (cello)
Mr. Mori has been active on the performance scene since his student days at Juilliard in New York. He has played with many different ensembles, including the Theater Chamber Players at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., the Sea Cliff Chamber Players, and the Cantilena Piano Quartet. Since returning to Japan in 1985, Mr. Mori has served as solo cellist with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, and has been a member of the Tokyo Piano Trio, the Kiri Piano Quartet, NADA, and others. He is also an associate professor at the Toho Gakuen College of Music.

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