Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi

He started to study music under the tutorship of Hideo Saito, founder of the Tokyo Conservatory or Toho Gakuen School of Music from where he would graduate.[1]

Tsutsumi made his debut as cellist when he was 12 years old with the Tokyo Philharmonic and at 18 he gave his first concert tour as soloist with the NHK Symphony Orchestra throughout India, Russia and Europe.[1][2]

He was granted a Fulbright Scholarship to study at Indiana University with János Starker commencing in 1962. He won first prize at the Pablo Casals International Cello Competition in 1963 at Budapest.[3][4][5] He completed his Artist Diploma in Instrumental Performance at Indiana University in 1965.

Tsutsumi was with Western University in London, Ontario from 1966 to 1984 as Resident Artist.[6] His Faculty of Music colleagues at Western included such performing artists as Ronald Turini, Steven Staryk, Gerald Stanik,[7] Damjana Bratuz,[8] Arthur Rowe,[9] and Bruce Vogt.[10] He was later with Illinois University.

From 1988 to 2006 he was Professor of Cello at Indiana University where his colleagues included his former professor János Starker.

Tsutsumi was President of the Toho Gakuen School of Music, his alma mater, and reportedly the largest music conservatory in the world, from 2004 to 2014.[11] He has been Visiting Professor of Cello at Korea National University of Arts since 2017, where one of his students won 1st place at the 2019 David Popper International Cello Competition. He was a jurist at several editions of the Tchaikovsky International Cello Competition in Moscow, including 2019.[12]

His concert performances have taken him around the world to perform as soloist with the most important orchestras, including the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington D.C., the Munich Philharmonic, the ORTF or Orchestre National de France, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, London's Philharmonia Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Czech Philharmonic, the Warsaw Philharmonic, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia of Rome, the Indianapolis Symphony, the Toronto Symphony and Vancouver Symphony orchestras, among many others. He has toured Japan with Canada's National Arts Centre Orchestra of Ottawa. He has participated in festivals such as the Algoma Fall, Banff, Guelph Spring, Ontario Place, and Stratford in Canada, and the Ravinia in the United States.

He has appeared with the most prestigious maestros: Seiji Ozawa (with whom he recorded the cello solo in Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake), Giuseppe Sinopoli, Mstislav Rostropovich, Valery Gergiev, Zdenek Kosler (with whom he recorded the Dvorak Cello Concerto with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra for CBS/Sony Records), Eiji Oue and the musicians Gervase de Peyer, Ronald Turini (with whom he recorded the complete Beethoven sonatas for cello and piano for CBS/Sony Records), Emanuel Ax, Yo-Yo Ma, Nobuko Imai, Steven Staryk, Adele Marcus, James Campbell, Wolfgang Sawallisch (with whom he recorded the two Brahms sonatas for cello and piano for CBS/Sony Records), and many others.

He has recorded the Bach solo cello suites on three different occasions for CBS/Sony Records. In 1968 Tsutsumi recorded the Kodaly Sonata for Unaccompanied Cello for CBS/Sony Records,[13] a work which he presented on several occasions in acclaimed live performances.

Tsutsumi has given the world premiere performances and championed several important works by Japanese composers. These include Toru Takemitsu's "Orion and Pleiades" for cello and orchestra.[14] Tsutsumi gave the world premiere of the Takemitsu work in 1984 in Paris and later performed it with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Seiji Ozawa.

While at the Western University Faculty of Music in the 1970s, he founded Quartet Canada[15] together with his Western colleagues violinist Steven Staryk, pianist Ronald Turini and violist Gerald Stanick[16] with whom he recorded and performed many of the standard repertoire compositions for piano quartet.[17][18]

On 24 October 1974, Tsutsumi appeared with a Japanese combined orchestra which included the Toho Gakuen School of Music Orchestra and conductor Seiji Ozawa and violist Nobuko Imai in a world-wide telecast (carried on the PBS television network in the U.S.) from the United Nations building in New York City.[19] In the concert, he performed the cello solo in Strauss' Don Quixote.

He has performed the Dvorak cello concerto with the NHK Symphony Orchestra in 2013 and the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra in 2016.[20] He has toured Japan in November 2020 with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra performing the Tchaikovsky Variations on a Rococo Theme for cello and orchestra.[21]

Tsutsumi is President of Suntory Hall, Japan's first dedicated concert hall in Tokyo.[22] He is also President of the Japanese Federation of Musicians.[23]

He is beloved throughout the world of cello students because he is the cellist on most of the famous Suzuki CDs which accompany the Suzuki cello practice books. Tsutsumi's style and intonation in these recordings inspire thousands of students every day when they practice along with him.

Among the many distinctions received, he was awarded the 1970 Suntory Music Award for his contribution to the world of music.

In November 2009, Tsutsumi was awarded with a Medal of Honour with purple ribbon by the Government of Japan.[24]

He is married to playwright and scholar Harue Tsutsumi.