Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi

Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi (堤剛) (born July 28, 1942 in Tokyo) is a world renowned Japanese cellist.

In an international career which began in 1960, he has performed as soloist with prominent orchestras and conductors in many countries and given recitals and chamber music performances with distinguished collaborators.

These include the Akio Yashiro Cello Concerto composed for Tsutsumi and premiered in 1960, which Tsutsumi would later perform with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ozawa, and Toru Takemitsu's "Orion and Pleiades" for cello and orchestra which was commissioned for Tsutsumi by the Suntory Hall.

He was granted a Fulbright Scholarship to study at Indiana University with János Starker commencing in 1961.

Tsutsumi won first prize at the Pablo Casals International Cello Competition in 1963 at Budapest.

He also won the ARD International Music Competition in Munich for cello that same year.

Tsutsumi performed as soloist with orchestras such as the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the London Symphony 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 English Chamber Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic, the Warsaw Philharmonic, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia of Rome, the Indianapolis Symphony, the Toronto Symphony and Vancouver Symphony orchestras, the NHK Symphony Orchestra, among many others.

He 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 performed with conductors such as Seiji Ozawa (with whom he recorded the cello solo in Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake suite), Giuseppe Sinopoli, Mstislav Rostropovich, Valery Gergiev, Zdeněk Košler (with whom he recorded the Dvořák Cello Concerto with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra for CBS/Sony Records), Eiji Oue, José-Luis Garcia (with whom he recorded the Haydn Cello Concertos with the English Chamber Orchestra for Sony Records), and the musicians Gervase de Peyer, Ronald Turini (with whom he recorded the complete Beethoven works 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.

Tsutsumi was awarded the Artist Diploma in Instrumental Performance at Indiana University in 1965.

He was awarded the Artist Diploma in Instrumental Performance at Indiana University in 1965.

Tsutsumi was appointed as Assistant to Starker at Indiana University.

He was Assistant Professor and Resident Artist at Western University from 1967 to 1984 and Professor of Cello at Indiana University from 1988 to 2006.

Tsutsumi was with Western University in London, Ontario from 1967 to 1984 as Visiting Professor and Resident Artist.

His Faculty of Music colleagues at Western included such prominent performing artists as pianist Ronald Turini, violinist Steven Staryk, violist Gerald Stanik, pianist Damjana Bratuz, pianist Arthur Rowe, and pianist Bruce Vogt.

Music historian Philip G. Downs was also a member of the Faculty of Music at Western.

Tsutsumi's students at Western University included Christine Newland, later principal cello of Orchestra London, and Joel Cohen, later principal cello of the Oakland Symphony, both of whom also had notable solo careers.

On 24 October 1974, Tsutsumi appeared with a Japanese combined orchestra which included the Toho Gakuen School of Music Orchestra and members of the Japan Philharmonic with 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.

In the concert, he performed the cello solo in Strauss' Don Quixote.

Tsutsumi gave the world premiere performances and championed several important works by Japanese composers.

On 25, 26, 28 March 1980, Tsutsumi performed the Memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for cello and orchestra by Canadian composer Oskar Morawetz with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra conducted by Victor Feldbrill.

In 1982, Tsutsumi and Ronald Turini, his colleague at University of Western Ontario, performed in Ottawa, capital city of Canada, at the invitation of the Japanese Ambassador to Canada a recital program which included cello/piano sonatas of Bach, Beethoven, and Rachmaninoff.

Tsutsumi gave the world premiere of the Takemitsu work in 1984 in Paris with the Japan Philharmonic conducted by Tadaaki Otaka.

Tsutsumi taught at University of Illinois from 1984 to 1988.

In 1985, Tsutsumi and Turini performed the world premiere of the Sonata No. 2 for Cello and Piano of André Prévost.

In 1985, he toured Japan with Canada's National Arts Centre Orchestra of Ottawa.

In October 1985, Tsutsumi was soloist with the NHK Symphony Orchestra at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City performing the Antonín Dvořák Cello Concerto.

The New York Times review stated that Tsutsumi played "with energy and care".

In 1988 Tsutsumi performed the Schubert Arpeggione Sonata for cello and piano with pianist Hiroko Nakamura in Tokyo.

In October 1990 he performed it with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Seiji Ozawa in honour of Takemitsu's 60th birthday.

In 2001, Tsutsumi performed the Elgar Cello Concerto with Eiji Oue conducting.

In 2003, Tsutsumi and Turini performed a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation national broadcast recital of cello/piano sonatas of Borodin and Shostakovich.

He was President of Toho Gakuen School of Music from 2004 to 2014.

Tsutsumi’s father was a versatile player of the violin, viola and cello and also played the double bass in the Tokyo Radio Philharmonic.

His father taught all three instruments in local schools.

Tsuyoshi began the violin at the age of six, but changed to cello when he saw a half-size cello being demonstrated to his father by a dealer.

He started to study music under the tutorship of Hideo Saito, founder of the Toho Gakuen School of Music in Chōfu, Tokyo from where he would graduate.

Tsutsumi made his debut as cellist when he was 12 years old performing the Saint-Saens Cello Concerto No. 1 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.

Tsutsumi performed the Dvořák Cello Concerto with the NHK Symphony Orchestra in 2013 and later with the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra in 2021.

He toured Japan in November 2020 with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra performing the Tchaikovsky Variations on a Rococo Theme for cello and orchestra.