IMCD 085

Recorded at Weston Parish Church, Herts, U.K.

in October 2002

Producer:
Jan Johansson
Recording Engineer:
Jeffrey Ginn

The Fujita sisters from Japan have been playing chamber music together since early childhood. They made a highly acclaimed debut at Wigmore Hall in March 1999 and they were invited to give a Purcell Room recital in June 2000 by the Kirckman Concert Society. Also in June, they made a successful debut at Oji Hall in Tokyo, Japan. Concert engagements have taken the Trio to France, Canada, Italy, Ireland, Japan, Romania, Egypt, Morocco and Turkey and they have won numerous awards and prizes, both as a trio and individually. Arisa won the Audi Junior Music Competition when she was only 15 years old, Honoka won all the cello prizes at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, and Megumi won Fourth Prize at the 1992 Montreal International Piano Competition.

Arisa studied with David Takeno at the Guildhall School of Music, where the Trio also received coaching from the Takacs Quartet. Honoka studied with Jennifer Ward Clarke and Raphael Wallfisch also at the Guildhall School, Megumi studied at the Menuhin School with Louis Kentner, Simon Nicholls and Vlado Perlemuter and continued her studies at the Rubin Academy of Music, Tel-Aviv University and the Royal College of Music with Irina Zaritskaya. They won the Chamber Music Prize at the Guildhall School in 1994.

The sisters have performed the Beethoven Triple Concerto many times with orchestras including the Romanian National Enescu Philharmonic, Orchestre National de Pays de la Loire, France and the London Soloists Chamber Orchestra in venues including the Barbican Centre, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, Citè des Congrès, Nantes, France and the Atheneum Hall, Bucharest. Their performance of the Triple Concerto with the Romanian National Radio Orchestra at the Radio Hall, Bucharest was broadcast live by national television and radio.

In England the Trio has performed at the Barbican Centre, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Wigmore Hall, Purcell room, Crucible Theatre Sheffield, St John's Smith Square, St Martin-in-the-Fields, and at the Salisbury Festival. From 1994 the Trio was invited to perform at the Brasov International Chamber Music Festival in Romania for three consecutive years. In 1998, the Japan Foundation organized a concert tour for the Fujita Trio to Morocco, Rome, Cairo and Alexandria.

In 2000 the Trio made a highly acclaimed recording of chamber music by the Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu for ASV Records and their debut CD was released in the summer 2001 to coincide with concerts at the Wigmore Hall as part of Japan 2001 Festival, and the Warwick and Leamington Festival in July 2001.