Masaaki Suzuki

Since founding Bach Collegium Japan in 1990, Masaaki Suzuki has established himself as a leading authority on the works of Bach. He has remained their Music Director ever since, taking them regularly to major venues and festivals in Europe and the U.S. and building up an outstanding reputation for the expressive refinement and authenticity of his performances.

He is now regularly invited to work with renowned European period ensembles, such as Collegium Vocale Gent and the Freiburger Barockorchester together with whom he visits several European capitals this season, and modern instrument orchestras in repertoire as diverse as Britten, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Mozart and Stravinsky. Highlights of his current season with Bach Collegium Japan include a visit to the Edinburgh International Festival as well as performances in Tokyo of Handel’s Rinaldo and Messiah. He also conducts the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris and the Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir. Forthcoming engagements include the Boston Symphony, the Melbourne Symphony, the Rotterdam Philharmonic and the Zurich Tonhalle.

Suzuki’s impressive discography on the BIS label, featuring Bach’s complete works for harpsichord and his interpretations of Bach’s major choral works and sacred cantatas with Bach Collegium Japan (of which he has already completed over forty volumes of a project to record the complete series) have brought him many critical plaudits – The Times has written: “it would take an iron bar not to be moved by his crispness, sobriety and spiritual vigour”.

Masaaki Suzuki combines his conducting career with his work as organist and harpsichordist. Born in Kobe, he graduated from the Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music with a degree in composition and organ performance and went on to study harpsichord and organ at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam. Founder and head of the early music department, he teaches at the Tokyo University of the Arts. He is also Visiting Professor of Choral Conducting at the Yale School of Music and Yale Institute of Sacred Music and the conductor of Yale Schola Cantorum.

In April 2001, Suzuki was decorated with The Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic from Germany.