©Photo: Marco Borggreve

Masaaki Suzuki

Conductor / Harpsichord / Organ

Discography

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Bach Collegium Japan

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Masaaki Suzuki biography English

“An eminent Bach interpreter in his prime”
(Gramophone Magazine, May 2020)

Founder and Music Director: Bach Collegium Japan

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

In addition to working with renowned period ensembles, such as Collegium Vocale Gent, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Suzuki is invited to conduct repertoires as diverse as Brahms, Britten, Fauré, Mahler, Mendelssohn, Dvořák and Stravinsky, with orchestras such as New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, hr-Sinfonieorchester, Philharmonia Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Bavarian Radio, Danish National Radio, Gothenburg Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, and Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra.

This 2024/25 season includes his return to Orchestre de Chambre de Paris and Kyoto Symphony Orchestra, and his debut with National Symphony Orchestra Washington, The Philadelphia Orchestra, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, among others. Suzuki is also returning to Lahti Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Bilbao and Orquestra Sinfònica do Estado de São Paulo.

Suzuki’s impressive discography on the BIS label, featuring all Bach’s major choral works as well as complete works for harpsichord, has brought him many critical plaudits. The Times writes, “it would take an iron bar not to be moved by his crispness, sobriety and spiritual vigour”. 2018 marked the triumphant conclusion of Bach Collegium Japan’s epic recording of the complete sacred and secular cantatas initiated in 1995 and comprising sixty-five volumes. The ensemble has recently recorded the Grammophone awarded Bach’s St. John’s Passion and St. Matthew’s Passion.

This previous season he was invited with Bach Collegium Japan to the BBC Proms festival, and in June 2023 to participate as one of three ensembles in the cantata cycle at Bachfest Leipzig, where they also gave a critically acclaimed performance of Mendelssohn’s Elias; their busy touring schedule also took them to the USA performing at venues including the Alice Tully Hall, New York and San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall and several tours across Europe. Suzuki has also toured in Europe with Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Philharmonia Orchestra.

Suzuki combines his conducting career with his work as an organist and harpsichordist; he recently recorded Bach’s solo works for these instruments. 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 at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam under Ton Koopman and Piet Kee. Founder and Professor Emeritus of the early music department at the Tokyo University of the Arts, he was on the choral conducting faculty at the Yale School of Music and Yale Institute of Sacred Music from 2009 until 2013, where he remains affiliated as the principal guest conductor of Yale Schola Cantorum.

In 2012 Suzuki was awarded with the Leipzig Bach Medal and in 2013 the Royal Academy of Music Bach Prize. In April 2001, he was decorated with ‘Das Verdienstkreuz am Bande des Verdienstordens der Bundesrepublik’ from Germany.