Profile
Born
in Tokyo on August 2, 1977, to musician parents, Takeshi Kakehashi lost
his eyesight to childhood cancer just a month after birth. He
would always stop crying when listening to music, however, and could
reproduce melodies accurately, and began using the piano in lieu of
toys. He took up piano lessons at four and a half years old,
first studying with Ms. Yaeko Sasaki, and later with Ms. Keiko Takaoka
and Ms. Miyako Abe, and went on to study composition under Mr.
Yoshifumi Nakajima. Kakehashi feels that the days spent with
numerous friends at Naminori Nursery School and Nakayama Elementary
School in Hachioji city played a significant role in his upbringing,
leading him to become the man he is today.
Upon
graduation from elementary school in 1990, he left Japan for Europe,
and entered the preliminary course of the University of Music and
Performing Arts in Vienna, Austria. In the same year, he
returned
to Japan to have a malignant tumor removed from his eye, and resumed
his studies in Vienna the following year, studying under Ms. Elisabeth
Dvorak-Weisshaar.
1994: Wins first prize in the
International
Competition of the Blind and Partially Sighted Musicians in the Czech
Republic, as well as winning the Ettlingen International Competition
for Young Pianists (B category) in Germany as the youngest participant,
and his rich musical skills are recognized.
1995:
Wins second prize at the Stravinsky Awards International Competition
for children and young adults in the United States.
1997:
Receives the Muramatsu Award
1998:
Wins second prize at the Concours International Marguerite Long-Jacques
Thibaud in Paris, as well as receiving the Prize of the SACEM (recital
award) and Prize of the Chevillion-Bonnaud Foundation.
1999:
Wins the Tokyo Citizens’ Award for Cultural Award, Idemitsu
Music
Award, as well as the Braille Mainichi Culture Award.
2000:
Awarded a special prize by the mayor of Warsaw, on the occasion of the
Frederic Chopin International Piano Competition.
As well as the foremost Japanese
orchestras
– the NHK Symphony Orchestra, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony
Orchestra, New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, etc., Kakehashi has
performed with orchestras around the world including the Prague
Symphony Orchestra, St. Petersburg Academic Symphony Orchestra,
Orchestre National de France, Dresdner Kapellsolisten, Mozarteum
Orchester Salzburg, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Slovakia Philharmonic
Orchestra, Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire and Ostrobothnian
Chamber Orchestra.
He has performed with numerous
eminent conductors, including Seiji Ozawa, Jean Fournet, Emmanuel
Krivine, Gary Bertini, Hans Graf, Hubert Soudant, Kenichiro Kobayashi,
Gerd Arbrecht, Fabio Luisi and Daniel Harding.
Moreover,
his recitals have taken him from Japan to Europe (including Austria,
Germany, France, Italythe
Czech Republic, Slovakia,
and Russia) and South America (Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Venezuela),
and he made his US debut in the Isaac Stern Auditorium at Carnegie
Hall, in 2002.
Kakehashi
has also made numerous television and radio appearances in Japan
(including NHK’s “Geijutsu Gekijou”,
“Classic Hour”, “N-kyou Hour”).
His six CD recordings of pieces by composers such
as Mozart and Chopin have been released by King Records, Art Union,
Agora Musica (Italy) and Mainichi Classics.
He
currently resides in the suburbs of Vienna.
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