The Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra performs two concerts at the first Dvořák's Prague International Music Festival
The first of these was conducted on 20th August by Vladimír Válek. The audience in the Dvořák Hall of the Rudolfinum heard Brahms Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D major op.. 77 performed by the well-known Japanese artist Sayaka Shoji. In the second part they heard Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 in B minor op.. 74 "The Pathétique".
Sayaka Shoji was born in 1983 into an artistic family. She spent her childhood in Siena in Italy, where she studied at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana. A grant enabled her to continue her studies with Schlomo Mintz in Israel, completing her artistic education at the Musical University in Cologne under Zakhar Bron. She has won a series of prestigious international competitions, including the Mozart Junior Competition in Vienna in 1995, the Wieniawski International Competition for Young Violinists in Poland in 1997 and the Viotti Valsesia International Competition in Italy in 1999. In the same year, at the age of sixteen, she was the first Japanese to win the Paganini Competition in Genoa. She was also its youngest ever winner, which established her on the international music scene. - Since then Sayaka Shoji has appeared regularly under the baton of conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Lorin Maazel, Yuri Temirkanov, Colin Davis, Semjon Byčkov, Vladimir Askhenazy, Charles Dutoit, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Neville Marriner, Riccardo Chailly, Pinchas Zukerman, Eliahu Inbal, Myungh-Whun Chung and others. She performs regularly at recitals and chamber concerts at renowned festivals (Salzburg, Lucerne, Verbier, Schleswig-Holstein, Evian, the Estate Musicale del Garda, Fetes Musicales v Touraine, Folle Journée v Nantes and Tokyo) and her partners at chamber concerts have been Vadim Repin, Steven Isserlis, Michail Pletnev, Jiang Wang, Lang Lang, Lynn Harrell, Magdalena Kožená, Yefim Bronfan, Itamar Golan and Hélene Grimaud. - Her first tour of Japan with the St Petersburg Philharmonic and Yuri Temirkanov enjoyed great success in 2001.
PRÁVO, 22.8.2008, (VLA) In the Brahms D major Concerto she demonstrated a cultivated expression in addition to her virtuoso technique, as well as an almost masculine energy in the final movement. (...) The Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra also captivated with its precise rendition of Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6, "The Pathétique".
