Mitsuko Uchida, one of the greatest Mozart interpreters of our time, shares a long-term collaboration with the MCO, focused on Mozart’s piano concertos. Mitsuko Uchida leads the orchestra from the keyboard.
The partnership brings Mitsuko Uchida and the MCO to major venues and multiple-concert residencies across the world. It kicked off in January 2016 with an extensive European tour with 5 concerts in Spain (Alicante, Valencia, Barcelona, Oviedo, and Bilbao) and further performances in Luxembourg, Salzburg and Frankfurt. Each concert included two piano concertos paired around Mozart’s Divertimento K. 137, led by the MCO’s concertmaster. The tour concluded with a chamber music concert with Mitsuko Uchida in Frankfurt.
In Autumn 2016, Mitsuko Uchida and the MCO toured Japan. This tour culminated in a residency at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall on the occasion of the landmark venue’s 30th anniversary. Mitsuko Uchida was featured with a Mozart cycle in the opening series of the hall in 1986. In Spring 2017, the MCO and Mitsuko Uchida performed in Perugia, Treviso, and Hamburg’s newly-opened Elbphilharmonie.
In Spring 2019, Mitsuko Uchida and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra reconvene for a series of concerts in Europe and the United States which will launch long-term residencies at the Salzburg Festival, at London’s Southbank Centre and at New York’s Carnegie Hall.
After a covid-induced performing break, the MCO and Mitsuko Uchida resumed their touring activities together in 2021, with two tours spanning Europe and America.
In the season of 2023/2024, the partnership undertakes four projects that span three continents: Asia, Europe and North America.
Biography
One of the most revered artists of our time, Mitsuko Uchida is known as a peerless interpreter of the works of Mozart, Schubert, Schumann and Beethoven, as well for being a devotee of the piano music of Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, and György Kurtág.
She has enjoyed close relationships over many years with the world’s most renowned orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony, London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, and – in the US – the Chicago Symphony and The Cleveland Orchestra, with whom she recently celebrated her 100th performance at Severance Hall. Conductors with whom she has worked closely have included Bernard Haitink, Sir Simon Rattle, Riccardo Muti, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Vladimir Jurowski, Andris Nelsons, Gustavo Dudamel, and Mariss Jansons.
Since 2016, Mitsuko Uchida has been an Artistic Partner of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, with whom she is currently engaged on a multi-season touring project in Europe, Japan and North America. She also appears regularly in recitals in Vienna, Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, London, New York and Tokyo, and is a frequent guest at the Salzburg Mozartwoche and Salzburg Festival.
Mitsuko Uchida records exclusively for Decca, and her multi-award-winning discography includes the complete Mozart and Schubert piano sonatas. She is the recipient of two Grammy® Awards – for Mozart Concertos with The Cleveland Orchestra, and for an album of lieder with Dorothea Röschmann – and her recording of the Schoenberg Piano Concerto with Pierre Boulez and the Cleveland Orchestra won the Gramophone Award for Best Concerto.
A founding member of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust and Director of Marlboro Music Festival, Mitsuko Uchida is a recipient of the Golden Mozart Medal from the Salzburg Mozarteum and the Praemium Imperiale from the Japan Art Association. She has also been awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society and the Wigmore Hall Medal and holds Honorary Degrees from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. In 2009 she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
