MASATO SUZUKI is conductor, composer, pianist, harpsichordist and organist living in The Netherlands.
He is the music director and the co-founder of Ensemble Genesis. With its concert master, Yukie Yamaguchi, and brilliant players such as Andreas Böhlen or Takashi Kaketa, the ensemble offers a wide cross-genre programme from early music through contemporary music with original instruments. After their successful opening series, “Four Seasons”, they were featured by NHK, the national television programme in Japan in a unique programme of Biber, Hindemith, Feldmann or Niigaki, the composer in residence of the ensemble. Their recent performance, “Eurydice’s grief” (2011, co-production with Yokohama City) was highly acclaimed for its complex creation with music, dance, image, light and electronics sound.
In 2008, he founded German-Japanese Lied Forum together with Dominik Wörner (Bass baritone) and Goro Tamura (Art director). They created an entirely new “Lieder Abend” with Brahms’s song cycle “Die Schöne Magelone” in Tokyo, where the Märchen story was narrated by an actor and song texts were projected onto the linen on the stage with the 15 new oil paintings so that non-German listeners could perfectly follow the story without being disturbed by digital supertitles. After the success of their second project “Winterreise”, his wish to combine visual elements with music became more and more stronger and he exercised the same idea in the opera “L’incoronazione di Poppea” at New National Theater in Japan, his first opera performance as regisseur. Goro Tamura and he were co-regisseur for Wagner opera projects at Spring Festival in Tokyo in 2011 and 2012.
As a regular player and soloist of Bach Collegium Japan, he participates in concerts, tours and recordings of the whole cantatas by J.S. Bach (BIS) since 2002. He also reconstructed lost movements of cantata No. 37 or No. 190, which were also recorded in the series.
He is the principal organist of Ensemble Vox Luminis since 2009, who won the Grammphone Award of the year 2012 with its recording of Schütz “Musicalische Exequien” (Ricercar).
Masato is performing regularly in festivals such as Musikfest Bremen, Edinburgh Festival, etc, also as chamber music player in such ensemble as Sette Voci, Ensemble Vin Santo or Maro World. He has no barrier in his repertoire which extends to playing on historical Kabuki-Theatre (“Twelfth Night”, Yukio Ninagawa project, 2006), performing “The Art of Fugue” in a Live House (2009) or conducting Gluck’s “Orfeo and Euridice” translated into historical Japanese by Ogai Mori(2012).
As a composer, he started his career with a unique recital of his own pieces mixed with Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” performed by him. His “Apokalypsis II” was premièred by Sette Voci conducted by Peter Kooij.
Other main compositions:
“Safran” for choir and piano, commissioned by Chor Frosch
“YOKOHAMA” for organ and its combination mechanism, commissioned by Yokohama Minato Mirai Hall
“Apokalypsis V” for four instruments, commissioned by Musiker Witz
“De Profundis” for choir a cappella, commissioned by Tokyo Musik Kreis
Three fugues on Genevan Psalms, commissioned by Shinko Church
He is the organist at Tokyo Oncho Church and Japanese Christian Fellowship in The Netherlands. He also gives regular master classes for organists.
He was born in 1981 at Den Haag in The Netherlands and lives in Voorburg, The Netherlands. He received following higher education in Japan and The Netherlands.
Bachelor Degree
– Composition at Tokyo National University for Fine Arts and Music
Master Degree
– Early Music at Tokyo National University for Fine Arts and Music
– Organ at Royal Conservatory in The Hague
– Improvisation at Royal Conservatory in The Hague (Cum laude)
He studied composition with Masayuki Nagatomi, Atsutada Otaka and Hiroshi Aoshima, Conducting with Yukio Kitahara, Organ with Masaaki Suzuki, Jos van der Kooij, Makiko Hayashima, Keiko Utsumi, Harpsichord with Bob van Asperen, Piano/Fortepiano/Chamber Music with Michio Kobayashi, Korad Richter, Akira Miyoshi, Toru Kimura, Jakob Stämpfli, Tomoko Kato, Stanley Hoogland, Satoru Sunahara, Roger Vignoles.