Suntory Hall’s 9th Chamber Music Garden

Suntory Hall’s annual Chamber Music Garden (CMG) festival takes place over 16 days in June in the intimate space of its Blue Rose (Small Hall). Founded in 2011 for people to experience chamber music in a cosy atmosphere and enjoy the musicians perform up close, it has now developed into one of Japan’s largest chamber music festivals, attracting an impressive line-up of outstanding chamber musicians from home and abroad.

Blue Rose (Photo credit: Suntory Hall)

This year, 19 concerts are held, opening with a concert produced by cellist and President of Suntory Hall Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi to celebrate 50 years of the Suntory Foundation for the Arts. Highlights include the Beethoven Cycle by the Kuss Quartett, an evening of solo / chamber music on an Érard piano, and the popular weekday lunchtime concert series.

Historic French-made Érard piano (1867) possessed by Suntory Hall since 2004

For the annual Beethoven String Quartet cycle, CMG welcomes the Berlin-based innovative Kuss Quartett. They will perform the sixteen quartets in chronological order of composition over five concerts between 2 to 13 Jun, and the final concert will culminate in the world premiere of Bruno Mantovani’s new string quartet Beethoveniana, which is co-commissioned by Suntory Hall Tokyo, Philharmonie de Paris, Pro Quartet, Norddeutscher Rundfunk – NDR Hannover, Concertgebouw Amsterdam and Wigmore Hall, London.

CMG’s Asia-Ensemble at Tokyo series brings together notable chamber musicians from the Asia region. This year, South Korean violinist Soojin Han, Japanese cellist Dai Miyata and Siberia-born pianist Pavel Kolesnikov will give a one-night only performance in a programme including Debussy’s cello sonata and Brahms’s Piano Trio No.1 on 10 Jun.

The winner of last year’s first-ever International Chopin Competition on Period Instruments in Warsaw, Tomasz Ritter, will give an afternoon concert of Chopin’s solo / chamber music on the historical Érard piano (1867) in the possession of Suntory Hall. In the first half, he will perform the fourth Ballade and a selection of polonaises and mazurkas, and in the second half, he will be joined by five Japanese period-instrument performers including the members of Bach Collegium Japan in the chamber version of Chopin’s youthful second piano concerto  on 9 Jun.

Kuss Quartett (Photo credit: Suntory Hall)

Ensemble Raro, formed in 2004 among Diana Ketler (piano), Alexander Sitkovetsky (violin), Razvan Popovici (violin) and Bernhard Naoki Hedenborg known as a member of the Vienna Philharmonic (cello), is celebrating their 15th anniversary on their CMG stage performing Brahms’ Piano Quartet No. 3 and a Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks’ Piano Quratet on 15 Jun. 

Precious 1pm Vol. 1 – 4 is a series of one-hour weekday lunchtime four concerts introduced from the stage by the musicians. In the first of this year’s series, the distinguished faculty members of the Suntory Hall Chamber Music Academy, Kikuei Ikeda (violin), Kazuhide Isomura (viola) and Hakuro Mori (cello), are joined by clarinettist István Kohán and violinist Reiko Watanabe in a programme featuring popular highlights of the clarinet quintet repertoire (5 Jun, Vol. 1).

Emerging young violinist Moné Hattori performs masterpieces of twentieth-century Russian chamber music, Prokofiev’s Violin Sonata No.1 and Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No.2 (7 Jun, Vol. 2), and Michie Koyama (piano) and Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi join forces again in a programme of Mendelssohn’s cello sonatas (12 Jun, Vol. 3). Lastly, internationally renowned harpist Naoko Yoshino and Hiroshi Ikematsu, principal double bass of the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and former principal of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, give a rare programme of harp and double bass duets (14 Jun, Vol. 4)

Discovery Night is another series of soiree concerts starting half an hour later than the usual 19:00 concerts for busy working professionals to attend after work. The audience are to discover the pieces which the musicians are particular about. Especially in Concert II when Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, featuring Satoshi Takeshima, percussionist of NHK Symphony, is performed with trumpet, percussion and piano (6 Jun, Concert I and 12 Jun, Concert II).

We also continue the popular Saturday morning concerts by the current fellows of Suntory Hall’s Chamber Music Academy on 8 and 15 Jun).

In the Final Concert, many of the participating artists and groups will come together in a festive and fun programme for unusual combinations of instruments on 16 Jun. Chamber Music Garden offers a wide-ranging programme at various time slots to meet the diverse interests of the audience from beginners to connoisseurs.

Full listings of the Chamber Music Garden 2019 can be found in the following link:
https://www.suntory.com/culture-sports/suntoryhall/feature/chamber2019/

Some videos from CMG 2018 are available below:

• Suntory Hall Chamber Music Garden Opening Night 2018 Produced by Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi 2018
  Antonin Dvořak: Piano Trio No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 90, “Dumky”, 5th Movment (Encore)
  Piano: Mami Hagiwara, Violin: Tatsuki Narita, Cello: Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi
  https://youtu.be/DT8mWjmoUcw
• Cuarteto Casals – The Beethoven Cycle I
  Beethoven: String Quartet No. 11 in F Minor, Op. 95, “Serioso”, 1st Movement
  Violin: Vera Martínez Mehner, Violin: Abel Tomàs, Viola: Jonathan Brown, Cello: Arnau Tomàs
  https://youtu.be/3_SY6VyC4vE

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