Taro UEMURA
Guest Concertmaster
Born in 1984 in Kuwana, Mie. He started the violin at the age of four, guided by his mother. He received various awards from the small age. Having graduated from Kikusato High School Music Division in Nagoya, he graduated from Toho School of Music in the first place, given an opportunity to play in front of the Emperor at Imperial Palace. During his Toho days, he was rewarded with special scholarship, played as concert master numerous times as well as often appeared in chamber music concerts. He has studied the violin with Koichiro HARADA, studied late Ryosaku KUBOTA, Azusa TATEDA, Shigeko HAYASHI and Asako URUSHIHARA, the conducting with Ken TAKASEKI, studied the chamber Music with the Tokyo String Quartet, Hakuro Mori and others. He has received guidance and advice from well-known teachers and violinists, such as Zakhar BRON, Michel FURISCHENSHLAGER, Dora SCHWARZBERG, Oleg KRYSA, Namyun KIM, Krzysztof WEGRZYN and Masao KAWASAKI etc. With advice from them, he held recitals at three times at Paramita Museum and performed with domestic and international orchestras.
In 2005, he won the first prize together with Kuroyanagi award, Leucadia award, Sumi award and Iwatani award (audience award) at the 74th Japan Music Competition Violin division. In 2006, his native Kuwana-nishi Rotary Club awarded him with “the 19th Young Musicians Encouraging Award.” At the same time, he received the scholarship at Vienna International Violin Seminar. He also appeared at NHK-FM classical recital. In 2006, he was invited to Prague International Music Festival and had an opportunity to play Brahms concerto with Prague Chamber Orchestra. He held recitals and received good reviews at Teplich (St. Jan Krtiel Church) as well as Plzen (Azpzdoceske Museum) in Czech.
He also devotes himself to chamber music, especially to the Jupiter Quartet Japan of which he is a founding member. They played pieces from Bartók, Schumann, Brahms and received good reviews from other recitals held in different parts of the country. Receiving guidance and advice from the Alban Berg Quartet, Michelangelo String Quartet and Gewanthaus Quartet, they also appeared in JT Ensemble Series, Chofu Music Festival, and some opportunities outside the Metropolitan area. He is also active in orchestra. He played “La Bohème”, Mahler’s “Auferstehung”, and “Tannhäuser” all of which were conducted by Maestro Seiji OZAWA. He also joins Miyazaki International Music Festival, Takeo International Music Festival and Canadian Tour by Tokyo Ensemble. He is also highly regarded as concertmaster, receiving invitations from various orchestras.
Currently he live in Germany, being enrolled in Hochschule for Musik Hannover and Geneva Conservatory the Quartet course.