Yukiko Sugawara

About Yukiko Sugawara

Yukiko Sugawara was born in Sapporo, Japan where she first studied piano with Michiko Endo. She then studied with Aiko Iguchi at the Toho Music College (Tokyo) and with Hans Erich Riebensahm (Berlin). In Cologne she was awarded a diploma as a concert pianist by Aloys Kontarsky. Yukiko Sugawara has won numerous international prizes, including the Kranichstein Music Award. She performs at renowned European festivals, such as Donaueschinger Tage für Neue Musik, ECLAT Festival Stuttgart, Mouvement – Musik im 20. Jahrhundert, Saarbrücken, Holland Festival, Berliner Festwochen, Biennale Berlin, Festival d'Automne Paris, Warsaw Autumn Festival, Huddersfield Music Festival, Archipel Genf, Ars Musica Brusseln, AVANTI!-Festival Porvoo, Finland, Music Factory Bergen, Norway, as well as in Chicago, New York, Tokyo, Kyoto, and the Akiyoshidai Musical Days.

As a soloist she gives concerts with conductors like Pierre Boulez, Sylvain Cambreling, Peter Eötvös, Peter Hirsch, Peter Rundel, Lothar Zagrosek, and Hans Zender. In the field of chamber music, she has performed in various groups, for example as a duo with the violinist Tomoko Kiba, as a piano duo with Tomoko Hemmi and with the soprano Yuko Kakuta.

As a lecturer, Yukiko Sugawara conducts many courses and workshops. Numerous recordings testify to her active work as a chamber musician and as a soloist. For her interpretation of Helmut Lachenmann's Serynade, she received the German Record Critics' Award.