Nobuko Imai

Nobuko Imai (Japanese今井 信 子, Nobuko Imai, born March 18, 1943 in Tokyo ) is a Japanese violist who was known both as a chamber musician and as soloist. Since 1988 she plays an Andrea Guarneri of year 1690.

Life and work

Nobuko Imai studied at the Toho Academy of Music in Tokyo, and at Yale University and the Juilliard School of Music in the USA. She was successful in the two most important international competitions for Viola: the International ARD Music Competition in Munich, she received the highest, at the International Viola Competition in Geneva the second prize. She taught for twenty years at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold, afterwards at the conservatories of Amsterdam, Geneva and at the Conservatoire Supérieur et Académie de Musique Tibor Varga in Sion. Imai 's artistic adviser of the Casals Hall in Tokyo, where she runs an annual Viola Festival. Since 2007 she has been professor of the course Kronberg Academy Masters.

Imai was for several years a member of the Vermeer Quartet, before they founded the Michael Angelo Quartet with Stephan Picard, Mihaela Martin and Frans Helmerson. She has collaborated in chamber music projects with soloists such as Martha Argerich, Kyung -Wha Chung, Heinz Holliger, Mischa Maisky, Midori, Murray Perahia, Gidon Kremer, Yo -Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, András Schiff, Isaac Stern and Pinchas Zukerman and concerted with the world's major orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Symphony, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the London Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo.

Nobuko Imai is particularly committed to the music of contemporary composers. Toru Takemitsu composed for her concert A String around Autumn. In 1995, she initiated three Hindemith Festival in Tokyo, London and New York. In 1996 she was the Suntory Hall Arts Prize, the highest cultural award of Japan awarded. For young musicians from Japan and the Netherlands, she founded the East West Academy Baroque.

Among the more than thirty CD recordings Imai's the complete recording of the Suites for cello solo found in the work for viola solo by Johann Sebastian Bach particular attention.