Mitsuko Shirai

Mitsuko Shirai ranks among the foremost interpreters of German art song worldwide. Born and raised in Japan, she completed her training in Stuttgart, where an encounter with fellow student and pianist Hartmut Höll led to a professional partnership that soon evolved into marriage. Since 1994 the pair have served as principal instructors at a lied centre for voice-and-piano duos housed at the Musikhochschule Karlsruhe, while also directing parallel workshops in Finland, Weimar, Salzburg, Tanglewood, Cincinnati, and elsewhere. Their joint recitals have reached audiences across the globe, yet they remain especially prominent in Germany and Japan, where Shirai received the Great Idemitsu Music Award in 1996. One of the most extensively recorded lieder singers of recent decades, she has appeared on Philips and Camerata but placed the bulk of her discography with Capriccio. Her repertoire extends from Louis Spohr to Anton Webern, yet she is not confined to the recital platform; as a contralto she has earned particular recognition for her accounts of Gustav Mahler’s orchestral songs and has performed operatic roles, most often in Mozart while also venturing into rarer works such as Richard Wagner’s Das Liebesverbot.