Yayoi Toda - 20th Century Solo Violin Works (2010)

Yayoi Toda began violin lessons at the age of four and quickly showed her talents as she took first place in the primary school division of the 33rd Japan Music Competition for Students in 1979. Her competitive successes continued and in 1985, she won first place in the 54th Japan Music Competition.

Ms. Toda studied in the music department of Tokyo's Toho Gakuen High School and after graduating at the top of her class from Toho University, she went to Europe for further studies at Amsterdam's Sweelinck Music Academy. In 1993 she came to the attention of the classical music world when she walked away with first prize at the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition in Belgium.

To date, her busy performance schedule has included engagements with London Philharmonic Orchestra, the New York Chamber Orchestra, Moscow Philharmonic, Prague Chamber Orchestra, Bonn Beethovenhalle Orchestra, The Hague Residentie Orchestra, Radio Chamber Orchestra (Holland), Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Noord-Nederlands Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic, Singapore Symphony, Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, and Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen as well as many of Japan's own major orchestras.
Ms Toda has also performed to rave reviews with artists including Seiji Ozawa, Yuri Simonov, Jean Fournet, Gary Bertini, Kenichiro Kobayashi, Martha Argerich, Stanislav Bunin, Peter Eötvös, Shlomo Mintz, Jean-Jacques Kantorow, and Alexander Schneider.

In 1996, Ms Toda received the Delay Scholarship to study for one year at the Juilliard School, and a year later made her New York debut to rave reviews. The same year saw her performance at the Concertgebouw of the violin concerto dedicated to her by Dutch composer Tristan Keuris (1946-1996), Violin Concerto No 2. In 1998, Ms Toda joined the Holland tour of the Japan Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra as soloist. She performed in a recital centering around chamber music entitled “Yayoi and Friends” at Carnegie Hall in 1999. In 2000, was invited by the Hague Residentie Orchestra to perform Beethoven Violin Concerto with them prior to their Japan tour. Her passionate performances with them were highly acclaimed by the local audiences sand critics alike. In June 2001, she played J.S. Bach's complete works for unaccompanied violin at Fukushima International Music Festival and in November of the same year, she joined the Asia tour by Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra in Malaysia, Japan and Korea as a soloist. Ms. Toda is also in demand as a recital performer, and recent engagements have included concerts with pianist Frank Barley in December and in April 2002 a highly successful recital tour with pianist Abdel Rahman El Bacha.

She has been invited to Fukushima International Music Festival every year, and in 2005, she invited as a judge of the violin division to the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Belgium.

Ms. Toda has made recordings such as “Enesco, J.S. Bach” and “The Unaccompanied Sonatas and Partitas of J.S. Bach” from the Ongaku-no-Tomo record label, “Six Sonatas for Violin Solo of Ysaye” in 2004, the precious favorite violin pieces “Reve Denfant” in September 2006 from EXTON.

Ms Toda has studied under the tutelage of eminent instructors including Toshiya Eto, Herman Krebbers, Charles-André Linale and Dorothy Delay and is a recipient of the prestigious Idemitsu Music Award. She performs on the “Pietro Guarneri (1740)” generously provided by Ueno Fine Chemicals Industry, Ltd.