Sayaka Shoji

Violin

Home
Reviews
Features
Discography

“Shoji isn’t merely a superb technician, she’s a deeply engaging performer. Her richly resonant, spirited sound that is impressive and so, too, is the poetic delicacy of her phrasing.”
(Gramophone)

Japanese violinist, Sayaka Shoji has become internationally recognised for her musicianship, brilliant technique and enduring strength on the concert platform. She has developed an extensive repertoire including masterworks by Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Sibelius and Shostakovich as well as newly commissioned works.

Shoji works regularly with top conductors including; Yuri Temirkanov, Zubin Mehta, Gianandrea Noseda, Mariss Jansons, Paavo Järvi, Vladimir Ashkenazy and Osmo Vänska and performs with leading orchestras such as; St Petersburg Philharmonic, The Mariinsky and NHK Symphony as well as Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia

Highlights of Sayaka’s 2019/20 season include tours with the Philharmonia Orchestra to the UK and Japan under the batons of Vladimir Ashkenazy and Esa Pekka-Salonen respectively. In addition, she will make her debut with The Cleveland Orchestra and give concerts in Belfast with Ulster Orchestra, as well as returning to St Petersburg to perform Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with the St Petersburg Philharmonic and Yuri Temirkanov for the closing concert of their season.

Sayaka remains interested in cross-arts projects and continues her work with Japanese choreographer, Saburo Teshigawara, for a combined music and dance project featuring works by amongst others; Stravinsky, Sylvestrov, Hindemith and Pärt. Alongside her concert activities, she has created an experimental visual arts project called ‘Synesthesia’ where she transforms music into visual forms of expression. She will give recitals with projection of her video work in Paris in April.

In recital, Sayaka has worked with Gianluca Cascioli, with whom she has recorded the complete Beethoven Sonatas for Piano and Violin. This season, she will give chamber music concerts with Nicholas Angelich and Modigliani Quartet and tour with Vikingur Ólafsson including a date at the Wigmore Hall.

Sayaka Shoji: Tchaikovsky (Klaus Mäkelä) © Iceland Symphony Orchestra

Last season, Sayaka joined her supporter, Yuri Temirkanov and the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra on tour to Italy, including performances at Parco della Musica in Rome. The pair have toured extensively with Orchestras including St Petersburg Philharmonic, London Symphony, Philharmonia and Baltimore Symphony to much of Europe, Japan, Mexico, Russia and the USA.

A prolific recording artist, Sayaka has released several albums on Deutsche Grammophon including Sibelius and Beethoven Violin Concertos with the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Temirkanov. With Yutaka Sado and the Tonkünstler Orchester she recently released a live disc recorded at the Musikverein, Vienna featuring Bernstein Serenade. Other live recordings include sonatas by Mozart, Schubert and Brahms recorded with Menahem Pressler.

Sayaka was educated in Siena and Cologne and in 1999 she took first prize as the youngest and first Japanese winner of the Paganini Competition. She was awarded the Mainichi Art Award in 2016, one of Japan’s most prestigious awards, presented to those who have had a significant influence on the arts. She plays a Recamier Stradivarius c.1729 kindly loaned to her by Ueno Fine Chemicals Industry Ltd

Sayaka Shoji: Prokofiev Violin Concerto No.1 (Paavo Järvi) © Estonian Festival Orchestra

“The lengthy first movement with its complex and demanding cadenza was breathtakingly performed… [she] received, as was to be expected, rapturous and prolonged applause. Her delivery throughout was astonishing in that she somehow made the sound of this comparatively small instrument fill the entire hall with its warmth and beauty.”

(Cambridge Independent, December 2019)

“The highlight of the evening was Brahms’ Violin Concerto… Shoji’s unembellished and direct, party soft-grained, and partly determined bowing, was immaculately integrated with the Philharmonia… Here was a case where thoroughly crafted visions of artistries formed a formidable result.”

(Bachtrack, November 2019, 5 stars)

“Shoji’s violin had silky beautiful tunes and presented deep and smooth expressions. She understood the composer’s intention and made a variety of expressions which added sharpness to the piece. Her performance was attractive and like a long novel as it was so rich and varied in content.”

(Ongakunotomo, June 2019)

“His Violin Concerto No. 3, ‘Still’, takes meditation as its main metaphor. Shoji, who has previously performed concertos by Brahms and Tchaikovsky with CityMusic, at various points played havoc-ridden ascending scales, calm Baroque-quoting trilling melodies, a pained and craggy climactic line that would put Berg to shame, and what might be the longest open-G-string note in the repertoire.”

(Cleveland Classical, March 2019)

“Shoji brings un-showy musicianship, a sense of structure and architecture, pleasing tone and flawless intonation to the performance of the Beethoven Concerto. It’s evident that she has the composer’s music in her blood.”

(Music Web International, October 2018)

“The Sibelius concertos are played with a crisp and articulated timbre that evokes the atmosphere of Finland.”

(Hisashi Kiyooka, The Japan Times, October 2018)

“Wednesday’s soloist in the concerto was Japanese violinist Sayaka Shoji, who in 1999 became the youngest winner and first Japanese to capture the Paganini Competition. Playing a 1729 Stradivarius, she displayed a tone that was luxurious in the lower registers, especially at the beginning, and sweet as she ascended to the upper reaches in the second movement. She sailed effortlessly through the third movement’s pyrotechnics and was joined throughout by sympathetic accompaniment from Temirkanov and Co.”

(Robert D. Thomas, March 2017, The Orange County Register)

“Soloist Sayaka Shoji (first prize-winner at the 1999 Paganini Competition) demonstrated admirable technical assurance and total commitment to the cause, playing as if she truly loved the music.”

(Robert Markow, backtrack, November 2016)

“She allowed the music to speak for itself and wisely focused instead on technical matters, on tone, articulation, and dynamics.”

(Zachary Lewis, The Plain Dealer, October 2016)

“Shoji and Cascioli certainly step up to the mark with the mighty proportions and virtuosic demands of Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 3 in E flat major, Op. 12, No. 3”

(Stephen Greenbank / Music Web International)

“The first Japanese and youngest-ever winner of the Paganini Competition in 1999 has ample technical ability, but it was her beautifully crafted playing that truly impressed. Shoji treated her listeners to amazing permutations of articulation, tone colour, dynamics and phrasing, while keeping everything coherent and un-forced.”

(The Straits Times, October 2016)

“Her performance here revealed impeccable intonation and an ability to sculpt phrases with considerable eloquence.”

(Tim Smith, The Baltimore Sun, February 2014)

“Sayaka Shoji is not big, but she certainly has a powerful sound. This was impressive, muscular playing, the bow biting into the string up near the bridge, a hair’s breadth away from ponticello. She has a gorgeous tone, is passionate and expressive, and she takes risks, playing with a rubato that is never excessive and constantly aids the shaping of the music and its direction. She could be ravishingly soft as well, although she ignored Tchaikovsky’s request for a mute in the Canzonetta. The finale was a devil-take-the-hindmost affair, full of dash and colour, with the air of a caprice and a hint of recklessness. This was a proper, thrilling, live event.”

(Tim Homfray, The Strad, October 2013)