27/Sep/2022 at 7:00 pm
Genre – Ensembles

About this eventSayaka Shoji, violin
Henri Demarquette, cello
Jean- Frédéric Neuburger, piano

In a programme of Schubert: Notturno in E-flat Op. 148 D. 897, Trio in B-flat Op. 99 D. 898 and Brahms: Piano Trio No. 3 in C minor Op. 101

In association with the Poona Music Society

Sayaka Shoji has become internationally recognised for her unique artistic versatility and development of an extensive repertoire. Her remarkable insight into musical languages comes from her mix of European and Japanese backgrounds. Born in Tokyo, Shoji moved to Siena, Italy when she was three. She studied at Accademia Musicale Chigiana and Cologne’s Musikhochschule and made her European debut with Lucerne Festival Strings and Rudolf Baumgartner at the Lucerne Festival and then at the Musikverein, Vienna at the age of fourteen.

Since winning first prize at the Paganini Competition in 1999, Sayaka Shoji has been supported by leading conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Lorin Maazel, Semyon Bychkov, Mariss Jansons and Yuri Temirkanov to name a few. She has also worked with renowned orchestras including the Israel Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, Los Angeles and New York Philharmonics, the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Czech Philharmonic, Wiener Symphoniker, The Mariinsky Orchestra and NHK Symphony Orchestra.

Recent highlights include successful debuts at the BBC Proms with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Vasily Petrenko and the Blossom Festival with the Cleveland Orchestra, a recital tour with Víkingur Ólafsson, a UK tour with Philharmonia Orchestra/Ashkenazy, as well as Bernstein’s 100th gala at Vienna Musikverein with Tonkünstler-Orchester/Sado which was recorded and released by Tonkünstler label.
In the upcoming seasons, Shoji will focus on various projects with her duo partner, Gianluca Cascioli and a collaboration with dancer/choreographer Saburo Teshigawara performing Bach and Bartók’s solo works at the Philharmonie de Paris. She will also appear with the Enescu Philharmonic/Bebeselea, National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra/Shui, Brussels Philharmonic/Ono, and make a return to Singapore Symphony Orchestra/Graf.

Alongside her usual concert activities, Shoji has created an experimental visual-music project, ‘Synesthesia’ in 2007, and exposed oil-paintings and video-art works. Her first video work (Shostakovich Prelude coll. with P.Frament) was chosen in a group exposition “Au-delà de mes rêves” in 2014 among the most renown artists such as Y.Kusama, S.Calle, R.Longo. Shoji has also collaborated with Tadao Ando, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and Saburo Teshigawara in numerous occasions.

A prolific recording artist, Shoji has released eleven albums on Deutsche Grammophon including Prokofiev, Sibelius and Beethoven Violin Concertos with the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Yuri Temirkanov. With Gianluca Cascioli she has recorded the complete Beethoven Sonatas for Piano and Violin and a recital album with Menahem Pressler.

Shoji won the Mainichi Art Award in 2016, one of Japan’s most prestigious awards, presented to those who have had a significant influence on the arts. In 2012, she was named one of “The 100 Most Influential People for Japan in future” by Nikkei Business.
Sayaka Shoji plays a Stradivarius ‘Recamier’ c.1729 kindly loaned to her by Ueno Fine Chemicals Industry Ltd.

“An enthusiastic musician with a multi-faceted personality, Henri Demarquette plays the cello as if setting a deep forest ablaze; not a single stroke of his bow leaves the listener indifferent because he awakens music’s subconscious” O. Bellamy (Le Monde de la Musique)
As a young, brilliant musician Henri Demarquette attended the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique in Paris at the age of thirteen and studied with Philippe Muller and Maurice Gendron. His talent was quickly noticed and he was unanimously awarded the Conservatoire’s first prize which led him to work with Pierre Fournier and Paul Tortelier in Paris, and Janos Starker in Bloomington, USA.

Already familiar with the stage, Demarquette made his concert debut at seventeen in a recital at Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. He caught the attention of Lord Yehudi Menuhin, who invited him to play Dvořák’s Cello Concerto with him in Prague and Paris. His career then took an international turn and he was invited to perform across the world with some of the greatest French and international orchestras: most recently Orchestre National de France, London Philharmonic, Weiner KammerOrchester, Ensemble Orchestral De Paris, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, Sinfonia Varsovia, and Neue Philharmonie Westfalen. He also appeared with his favourite piano-partners Boris Berezovsky, Michel Dalberto, Jean-Bernard Pommier, Fabrizio Chiovetta and Jean-Frédéric Neuburger. In 2015 he co-founded a string quartet with Augustin Dumay, Svetlin Roussev, and Miguel da Silva.

Extremely creative and passionate, Henri Demarquette is involved in many parallel projects. In 2014 he performed in an eclectic programme with music from Bach to Galliano in a duet with the French accordionist Richard Galliano, and premiered Contrastes for accordion, cello and orchestra with Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie. That same year, together with L’Ensemble Vocal Sequenza 9.3., he created “Vocello”, an original ensemble for cello and a cappella choir conducted by Catherine Simonpietri.

Henri Demarquette teaches at Ecole Normale de Musique Cortot in Paris.
He plays a Goffredo Cappa cello dated 1700.

Born in Paris, Jean-Frédéric Neuburger received an intense and varied musical education in piano, organ and composition before joining the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris. On graduating from the CNSM with Five « Premier Prix » he went on to study orchestral conducting and composition with Michael Jarrell in Geneva. As a concert pianist, he has been invited notably by the NHK Symphony Orchestra, the New-York Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, Orchestre de Paris, London Philharmonic, Bamberger Symphoniker. He as conducted Sinfonia Varsovia in Wagner and Haydn and Karlovy Vary Symphony Orchestra. He also dedicates a large part of his performing activities to contemporary music : he has premiered Philippe Manouryʼs concerto for piano and electronics with the Orchestre de Paris, Philippe Maintzʼs Concerto with the Luxembourg Philharmonic, as well as many new works by young composers.

As a composer, his work follows the path of the French composers of twentieth century, with a strong interest for timbral evolution and orchestration. He is commissioned by festivals and musical institutions such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, Radio-France, Evian Festival and numerous festivals and musical institutions. His works are performed by the Chorus and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra under conductors such as Christoph von Dohnányi, Alexander Briguer, Pascal Rophé, FrançoisXavier Roth, Jonathan Stockhammer.

Published by Durand (Universal Music Publishing) since 2012, Jean-Frédéric Neuburger received the Lili and Nadia Boulanger prize from the Académie des Beaux Arts and the Hervé Dugardin Prize from the Sacem in 2015.