Biography
Shunske Sato commands both modern and Baroque violins while serving as a leading conductor of historically informed performances, receiving acclaim for his concerts and recordings devoted to Bach, Vivaldi, and Telemann as well as the standard concerto literature of the Classical and Romantic periods. Born in Tokyo in 1984, he began violin lessons at age two and, by age four, was studying with Chin Kim. At ten he appeared as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and his professional path opened at twelve when he captured first prize in the Young Concert Artists competition of 1997. In 2010 he entered the seventeenth International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Leipzig, where he took second prize together with the audience prize; he also received the Idemitsu Award and the S & R Washington Award. His training included studies at the Juilliard School with Dorothy DeLay and Maseo Kawasaki, further work in Paris with Gérard Poulet, and completion of a graduate diploma at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich under Baroque violinist Mary Utiger. As concertmaster of Concerto Köln he performs on Baroque violin, and he holds the artistic directorship of the Netherlands Bach Society. Solo engagements have taken him before the Orchestra Libera Classica, the Berliner Lautten Compagney, and the Academy of Ancient Music, while additional concerto appearances with major symphony orchestras have occurred across Europe, Japan, and the United States. In chamber settings he has collaborated with Christine Schornsheim, Hidemi Suzuki, and Richard Egarr. Beyond his Baroque violin discography, Sato has recorded Niccolò Paganini’s Caprices for solo violin on gut strings and has played modern violin in Eugène Ysaÿe’s unaccompanied violin sonatas, Edvard Grieg’s sonatas for violin and piano, and Akira Nishimura’s works for violin and viola.
Albums
