Yu Kosuge

With her superlative technique, sensitivity of touch and profound understanding of the music she plays, Yu has become one of the world’s most noted young pianists.

Yu Kosuge has been giving recitals and performing with orchestras since early childhood. At the age of nine she made her debut with the Tokyo New City Orchestra. In 1993, she moved to Europe to continue her studies in Hannover and Salzburg and received great support and inspiration from András Schiff.

Yu Kosuge appears at the most important venues in Berlin, Hamburg, Köln, Munich, Vienna, Salzburg, London, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Zurich, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Tokyo, Washington and New York. Her Carnegie Hall debut recital met with outstanding success with critics praising her “acutely poetic sensibility…wit, drama, and effulgent lyricism”. Recent highlights include her debut at the Wigmore Hall in London, performing at the Salzburg Festival with Philippe Herreweghe and Camerata Salzburg, performances in La Roque d’Anthéron with Jacek Kaspszyk/Sinfonia Varsovia, the Japanese premiere of Tan Dun’s Piano Concerto ‘Fire’ with the NHK Symphony Orchestra under the baton of the composer in Japan and a tour with the NDR Hannover Radio SO under Eiji Oue.

As well as regular performances in Asia and with all the major Japanese orchestras, Yu Kosuge has worked with many of the leading European orchestras including the NDR Symphony Orchestra Hamburg, NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover, Berliner Sinfonie Orchester, Radio-Sinfonie Orchester Frankfurt, Camerata Salzburg, St Petersburg Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Radio Symphony Orchestra Finland. Yu Kosuge has performed with conductors of the stature of Seiji Ozawa, Jun Märkl, Philippe Herreweghe, Rudolf Barschai, Alexander Dmitriev, Gerd Albrecht, Lawrence Foster, Sakari Oramo, Christian Arming, Yutaka Sado, Osmo Vänskä, Vasili Petrenko and Dennis Russell Davies.

She has been invited to festivals in Rheingau, Schleswig-Holstein, Bremen, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Passau, Braunschweig, Salzburger Festspiele, Mozartwoche Salzburg, Holland Music Festival, Piano Festival Lille, La Roque d’Anthéron Piano Festival and La Folle Journée de Nantes.

In September 2009 Sony released Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No 1 with the Mito Chamber Orchestra and Seiji Ozawa with a selection from Songs Without Words. This is her 10th CD, since her first disc featuring the Chopin Études (accorded a five-star rating by Fono Forum Magazine). Yu Kosuge’s other recordings on Sony include Liszt’s 12 Études d´exécution transcendante, Chopin’s Préludes and Nocturne, and Mozart’s Piano Concertos Nos 20 and 22. Over the last few years Yu Kosuge has been recording Beethoven’s 32 Sonatas which she has recently completed. The box set will be released in the autumn of 2016.

Yu Kosuge is currently living in Munich.