Debut solo album from Japanese violinist Mayuko Kamio, winner of the 2007 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.
Mayuko Kamio made her concert debut in Tokyo at the age of ten under the baton of Charles Dutoit, in a concert broadcast on NHK television. In 1998, having captured a prize at the Menuhin International Violin Competition (the youngest ever to win the award), she performed with the Orchestre National de Lille under Lord Menuhin’s baton.
In 2004, Kamio was awarded the Gold Medal at the Monte Carlo Violin Masters and the International David Oistrakh Violin Competition in Ukraine. In 2004, she performed with the BBC Philharmonic under Gianandrea Noseda in Manchester, which was broadcast on BBC Radio, and then went on to tour to Japan. In January 2005, she was invited by the Lincoln Center in New York and gave a recital to huge critical acclaim. In 2006, she gave recitals in Japan, France, the United States, in Russia, and also performed with Tonhalle Orchestra/ Eliahu Inbal and Israel Philharmonic/ Zubin Mehta.
2010
“Mayuko Kamio, born in Osaka, Japan, but who studied also in the USA, won the 1998 Menuhin International Competition. She was the youngest artist to win this award – performing with Menuhin directing – and went on to win the gold medal in the 13th International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. She plays a 1727 Stradivarius once owned by Joachim and creates with it a remarkable range of vividly glowing timbre, playing with infinite subtlety of colour and phrasing. Moreover, she has planned this ambitious recital with skill, offering six shorter concertante works which are beautifully balanced as a whole, with the gentle charm and melancholy of the two Tchaikovsky pieces ideally placed to set off against their companions. She closes the Méditation exquisitely so that the sensuous rapture of the Chausson Poème follows on perfectly to make the rich musical highlight of the programme, helped by the lovely playing of her excellent partner pianist, Vadim Gladkov. Szymanowski's shimmering Mythes make for another sensuous peak of feeling, full of exotic, lyrical fervour, the finale 'Dryads and Pan' pictorially quite riveting. How clever, too, not to end the recital with Waxman's sparkling CarmenFantasy but to open with it, and immediately show her ability to catch the individual vocal quality of each of Bizet's indelibly folksy tunes. Then she offers Stravinsky's vigorously genial Pulcinella arrangement for her finale, another stream of rhythmically catchy melody that violinist and pianist share with gusto. Excellent recording makes this a debut not to be missed.”
February 2009
“Mayuko Kamio… plays a 1727 Stradivarius once owned by Joachim and creates with it a remarkable range of vividly glowing timbre, playing with infinite subtlety of colour and phrasing. She closes the Méditation exquisitely so that the sensuous rapture of the Chausson Poème follows on perfectly to make the rich musical highlight of the programme, helped by the lovely playing of her excellent partner pianist, Vadim Gladkov.”
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