Mitsuko Shirai

Biography

She first trained in Tokyo before settling in Germany, where she completed her vocal studies with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. Between 1973 and 1976, she took prizes in competitions at Vienna, Zwickau, ’s-Hertogenbosch, Athens, and Munich. She made her recital début in Tokyo in 1975, her European début in Amsterdam the following year. In 1989 she made her New York début at Carnegie Hall, in Ravel's Shéhérazade.

In 1973 Shirai formed a duo with the pianist Hartmut Höll, who became her husband. The pair have toured extensively, performing repertory from Scarlatti to the complete vocal works of Anton Webern, and have given masterclasses in Europe, the USA and Israel. In 1997 the two were awarded the ABC International Music Award.

Shirai has made occasional excursions into opera, including an admired Despina at Frankfurt in 1987, and has appeared in concert versions of Lucio Silla, Wagner’s Das Liebesverbot and Dukas’s Ariane et Barbe-bleue.

Other orchestral appearances have been with the Berlin Philharmonic, New Japan Philharmonic, Atlanta Symphony, Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique de Paris and the Vienna Symphony. Conductors include Riccardo Chailly, Eliahu Inbal, Yuri Ahronovitch, Ferencic and Wolfgang Sawallisch.

Teaching

In 1992 she was appointed professor of singing at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Karlsruhe.

She and her husband have presented masterclasses at the Savonlinna Opera Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, and the Aldeburgh Festival, as well as in Switzerland, the USA, and at Isaac Stern's Jerusalem Music Centre.

Selected discography