Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra

Born in Budapest in 1952, he began to play the piano at the age of five. In 1963, he entered the Béla Bartók Music School, studying piano and composition and in 1968, entered the Franz Liszt Music Academy as a pupil of Pál Kadosa and Ferenc Rados. His international fame began at the age of eighteen when he won Hungarian Radio’s International Beethoven Competition, and a scintillating solo career rapidly unfolded. He was invited to perform all over Europe, in North and South America as well as the Far East. In 1977, he was invited by Sviatoslav Richter to perform at his festival in France, and the two pianists also gave duet recitals together.
He has performed with leading world orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the San Francisco Orchestra. He has been a regular guest at international festivals in Edinburgh, Paris, Tours, Lucerne, Salzburg, Prague and Menton, and worked with such conductors as Claudio Abbado, Christoph von Dohnányi, Edo de Waart, Charles Mackerras, Lovro von Matacic, Charles Dutoit, Herbert Blomstedt and Michael Tilson Thomas.
In 1983, he co-founded the Budapest Festival Orchestra with Iván Fischer, and since 1987 has regularly conducted. He is also a recognised composer. He is deeply committed to contemporary music and has enjoyed a fruitful relationship with, amongst others, György Kurtág, giving world premieres of numerous Kurtág compositions, some of which are dedicated to him.
Zoltán Kocsis has recorded for Denon, Hungaroton, Nippon Columbia, Phonogram and Quintana, but is now an exclusive Philips Classics artist. He received an Edison prize for his recordings with Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra of the three Bartók concertos. His Debussy recordings won the Gramophone prize as well as the “Instrumental Recording of the year” award.
In Autumn 1997, he became general music director of the National Philharmonic Orchestra (formerly the Hungarian State Orchestra). As a result, the orchestra’s repertoire has broadened considerably, and since his appointment, several works have been given their world premiere.
In recent years, he has toured nine European countries and Japan with the orchestra as both conductor and soloist, and enjoyed immense critical acclaim.

Ken-ichiro KOBAYASHI studied composition and conducting at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. In 1974, he received both the first prize and the special award at the first International Conductor’s Competition of Hungarian Television in Budapest.
Presently KOBAYASHI holds positions at the Arnhem Phil. (Permanent Conductor), the Hungarian National Phil. (Conductor Laureate), the Nagoya Phil. (Conductor Laureate), MATAV Hungarian Symphony Orchestra (Principal Guest Conductor), and the Kyushu Symphony (Principal Guest Conductor).
He is also a professor at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music and a guest professor at the Tokyo College of Music.
　 KOBAYASHI received the Liszt Memorial Decoration, the Hungarian Order of Culture and the “Middle Cross with the Star” decoration from the Hungarian government.
KOBAYASHI has released numerous recordings from Canyon Classics and Octavia Records.
KOBAYASHI received a commission to compose a work in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Holland and Japan in 2000. Its first performance in Amsterdam with the Netherlands Phil. in the fall of 1999 to a sell-out audience received a standing ovation.
In May 2002, he conducted the very successful opening concert of the Prague Spring Festival. He conducted the complete “Ma Vlast” (My Homeland).

Mariko Senju began studying violin under Saburo Washimi at the age of three and under Toshiya Eto at the age of twelve. In 1973 she won first place in the elementary school division of the All Japan Students Musical Competition. In 1975 she performed a Bach Concerto with the NHK Symphony Orchestra for its first Young People’s Concert. This marked her debut as a professional violinist.
In 1977 she won first place in the violin division of the 46th Music Competition of Japan. In 1979 she placed fourth at the 26th Paganini International Violin Concours, and in 1981 she received special commendation in the 26th Foreign Placement Concours (Japan).
A 1985, she graduated from Keio University’s Department of Literature With a B. A. in Philosophy, and in the following year she passed an audition held by the conductor Giuseppe Sinopoli. In 1987 she made her London debut playing Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in a subscription concert of the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Sinopoli. In 1988 she received high acclaim for her performances with the Santa Cecilia Music Consevatory’s orchestra, conducted by Sinopoli.
　 Her CDs include ‘Mozart: Violin Concertos,’ ‘Vivaldi: The Four Seasons,’ ‘Lalo/Saint-Saens: Violin Concertos’ and ‘Dvorak/Bruch: Violin Concertos’ (with the Prague Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Zdenek Kosler). Her eighth CD, ‘Ysaye: Six Sonatas for Violin Solo (op.27),’ received the 1993 award for distinguished artistic works from Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs.
In 1990, Senju started regularly producing her own concert series, in which she has performed violin concertos by Beethoven, Brahms, Bach, and Sibelius. In 1991 she held a concert series marking the 200th anniversary of Mozart’s death in which she performed all of Mozart’s violin concertos. In 1993 she enjoyed great success in an ambitious series of performances of all of Ysaye’s Sonatas for Violin Solo.
In 1994 she won the Muramatsu Award. In 1995, which marked the 20th anniversary of her musical career, she gave a series of recitals in London. In January, 1996, she appeared in Prague as a soloist at a subscription concert of the Prague Symphony Orchestra. In April, 1997, her CD, ‘Paganini: 24 Caprices’ was released nationwide in the U.S.
She performed Ysaye’s Six Sonatas for Violin Solo, Op. 27 in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in February, 1999 with great success.
In 2000, which marked the 25th anniversary of her debut, she released two CDs entitled, respectively, ‘Arias’ and ‘Works for Violin Solo by 3 Composers.’ Another CD scheduled for release this fall will contain Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, Op. 61 and Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, Op. 64, with the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Paul Freeman.
Mariko Senju has long been involved with music in Prague. In 1991 she recorded violin concertos by Dvorak and Bruch with the Prague Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Zdenek Kosler, and in 2001, violin concertos by Sibelius and Tchaikovsky with the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Vladimir Valek.
She appeared as a soloist during a concert tour of Japan by the Suk Chamber Orchestra in the fall of 2001 – as she had done several times previously. She performed with the Prague Philharmonia, conducted by Jiri Belohlavek in January, 2002. She is also scheduled to appear as a soloist on tour in Japan with the Prague Symphony Orchestra in 2003.

Miyuji Kaneko was born in 1989 to a Japanese father and a Hungarian mother.
At the age of six he moved to Hungary alone to study piano under Zsuzsa Cs. Nagy at the Bartok Elementary School of Music. In 2001, at the age of 11, he skipped grades and was accepted to the Piano Department of the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, where he studied under Professors Gabor Eckhardt, Gyongyi Kevehazi and Rita Wagner. Having completed all of the courses in the Academy’s piano department, Miyuji returned to Japan in 2006 and was admitted to the Tokyo College of Music High School, where he studied under Kazune Shimizu, Akiyoshi Sako, and Katsuko Miura. Miyuji has won numerous international competitions, including the 2008 Bartok International Piano Competition. In 2011 he won the 12th Hotel Okura Music Award. In 2012 he won the 22nd Idemitsu Music Award, and also became a scholar of the Arkaim Japan-Russia Friendship Association, which was established to support outstanding young artists. In 2013 he was awarded the 2012 Jomo Prize (10th Jomo Art and Culture Prize, Music Division).
Miyuji Kaneko has performed with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ken-ichiro Kobayashi, New Japan Philharmonic, and Century Orchestra Osaka (now Japan Century Symphony Orchestra). He has performed in many countries, including Hungary, the United States, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Greece, Romania, the Czech Republic, Poland, China and Russia. He is currently enrolled in the graduate program at Tokyo College of Music. A Steinway Artist.