Etsuko Hirose

pianist

Originally from Nagoya in Japan, Etsuko Hirose began studying piano at the age of three, and at six years old, she performed Mozart’s Concerto No.26 with an orchestra. She joined the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris, then the CNSMD in the classes of Bruno Rigutto, Nicholas Angelich and Christian Ivaldi for chamber music. She perfected her skills with Marie-Françoise Bucquet, Jorge Chaîné, and Alfred Brendel, for whom she had the privilege of playing and receiving advice. Rewarded with a First Prize for piano, she is at the same time the laureate of prestigious international competitions - Frédéric Chopin Competition in Moscow, Viotti in Italy, ARD in Munich, and the famous Martha Argerich Competition - which have opened the doors to a remarkable international career for her.
She has been invited to prestigious venues - Herkulessaal in Munich, Kennedy Center in Washington, Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, Suntory Hall in Tokyo..., she has performed alongside renowned orchestras - The Bavarian Radio Orchestra, the Sinfonia Varsovia ,the Warsaw National Orchestra,the Moscow Philharmonic, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Ural Philharmonic Orchestra, the NHK Symphony Orchestra - under the direction of conductors such as Charles Dutoit, Marcello Viotti, Augustin Dumay, Fayçal Karoui, Dmitri Liss and Jacek Kaspszyk. She was applauded at La Roque d’Anthéron, at La Folle Journée in Nantes, Tokyo, Bilbao, Ekaterinburg and Warsaw, at Lisztomanias, Festival Radio Classique at the Olympia, Festival des Forêts, Beethovenfest Bonn, Mozartfest Würzburg, Berlioz Festival, Printemps Musical de Saint-Tropez, Brussels Piano Festival, Festival Piano-Pic, Festival das Artes in Coimbra (Portugal), and at the Festival Chopin de Bagatelle, she also took part in the Martha Argerich’s festivals in Japan, Taiwan and Italy, sharing the stage with great artists such as Misha Maisky, Henri Demarquette, Tatjiana Vassilieva, Gérard Caussé, Pierre Lenert, Fanny Clamagirand, Pascal Moraguès, Romain Guyot, Maurice Bourgue or Cyprien Katsaris. Her performances are broadcast regularly, notably on Arte, France3, France Musique, Radio Classique or NHK. Her discography includes several albums recorded with Denon, Warner, Piano 21, Danacord and Mirare,the label under which were released a Chopin recital, the Concertos of Liszt and Schumann with the Orchester de Pau Pays de Béarn, two recitals Balakirev and Lyapunov (Studies of transcendent execution) and more recently the masterful transcription for solo piano of Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony by Friedrich Kalkbrenner. After a highly acclaimed album of piano works by Moritz Moszkowski released on the Danacord label, and an album of transcriptions of Russian ballets for two pianos with Cyprien Katsaris, her latest record was distributed to works by Vladigerov, released by Mirare in the fall 2021.