Naoko Sonoda

Naoko Sonoda was born in Japan and studied with Seiko Ezawa and Mikhail Voskresenky at the Toho Gakuen Music School, before postgraduate studies at the Universität der Künste in Berlin with Rainer Becker. She also studied chamber music with Tabea Zimmermann and Natalia Gutman. She attended master courses with Hans Leygraf, Ferenc Rados, Klaus Hellwig, Pascal Devoyon, and Jacques Rouvier, and, after graduation, Naoko was engaged by the Universität der Künste Berlin, the Hochschule für Musik Hanns-Eisler Berlin, and the Franz Liszt Musikhochschule in Weimar as a collaborative pianist. Naoko is a prizewinner of many international piano and chamber-music competitions, including Argento and Trieste (Italy), and Lodz (Poland). Solo and chamber-music concert invitations have taken her all across Europe and Asia, including to festivals such as Schleswig-Holstein, Verbier and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. She has performed with orchestras such as the Sinfonie-Orchester Berlin (under M. Braun), and chamber music partners have included Kolja Blacher, Hartmut Rohde, Mark Gothoni, Danjulo Ishizaka, Jens Peter Maintz, Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt, as well as Andrei Ioniță with whom she has a close artistic collaboration. Naoko received accompanist prizes at the international music competition in Markneukirchen (2013), at the Lutoslawski International Cello Competition in Warsaw (2015) and at the 15th International Tchaikovsky Music Competition.