Naoko Sonoda

Japanese-born pianist Naoko Sonoda is a prizewinner of several international piano and chamber music competitions, including those in Argento and Trieste (Italy), as well as the Łódź Competition (Poland). Solo and chamber music concert invitations have taken her throughout Europe, Asia, the U.S., and South America, and to festivals such as the Schleswig-Holstein Festival, Meckle-Vorpommern, and Verbier Festival. Chamber music partners include Santiago Cañón Valencia, Hartmut Rohde, Mark Gothoni, Danjulo Ishizaka, Jens-Peter Maintz, and Andrei Ioniță.

She has performed with such renowned orchestras as the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, and has been heard in world-class venues, most notably the Berliner Philharmonie in Germany, Mariinsky Theatre Concert Hall in St. Petersburg, Teatro Mayor in Bogota, and Carnegie Hall in New York City.

Ms. Sonoda is in high demand as a collaborative pianist; she received prizes as best collaborative pianist at the International Music Competition in Markneukirchen (2013, 2019), the Lutosławski International Cello Competition in Warsaw (2015, 2018), and the XV International Tchaikovsky Competition (2015, 2019). Her performances are regularly broadcast on international radio and TV, including Kulturradio RBB, ZDF and BR in Germany, NPO Radio 4 in Netherlands, Radio Romania, NHK-FM in Japan, and the BBC.

Ms. Sonoda studied with Yoko Okumura, Seiko Ezawa, and Mikhail Voskresensky at the Toho Gakuen School of Music, before studying at the Universität der Künste in Berlin with Rainer Becker. She also studied chamber music with Tabea Zimmermann, Markus Nyikos, and Natalia Gutman. She has taken masterclasses with Hans Leygraf, Ferenc Rados, Klaus Hellwig, Pascal Devoyon, and Jacques Rouvier. After graduating, Naoko was engaged by the Universität der Künste in Berlin, the Hochschule für Musik Hanns-Eisler Berlin, and the Franz Liszt Musikhochschule in Weimar as a collaborative pianist.