Rieko Tsuchida - Biography

Rieko Tsuchida was born in Japan in 1994 and began her piano studies at age 3 with Ankie Foell in Madison, Wisconsin. In 1999 her family relocated to San Francisco where she is currently a scholarship student of John McCarthy in the Preparatory Division at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She has also studied with Andre Watts during the summer and performed in a master class for Lang Lang.

Since giving her first public performance at the age of 3, Rieko has performed at international venues as a soloist, chamber musician, and keyboardist of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra. In May 2009 she performed in Carnegie Hall as first prize winner of the Bradshaw and Buono International Piano Competition; that same year she made her concerto debut with the El Camino Youth Symphony Orchestra as grand prize winner of the ECYS Concerto Competition. Rieko has appeared in a joint program with opera stars Placido Domingo at the San Francisco Museum of the Modern Art and with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and Fredericha Von Stade at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music's "Annual Gala Concert." Additionally she has performed to a capacity audience at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco at the invitation of the Smuin Ballet and on the nationally broadcast radio show "From the Top" at Herbst Theatre in San Francisco. In May 2011 she will perform the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto no. 1 with the California Symphony under Maestro Barry Jekowsky at the Lesher Center of the Arts.

This summer she was one of five finalists in the 2010 Eastman Young Artists' International Piano Competition, where she performed with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra for the final round and also won the "Best Performance of a Classical Sonata" award. After leaving Rochester, NY, Rieko flew to the Netherlands and presented numerous solo recitals as the youngest participant of The International Holland Music Sessions, studying with renowned teachers Matti Raekallio and Klaus Hellwig.

Rieko has won numerous awards in recent years. She recently won the California Youth Symphony Concerto Competition and will perform with the California Youth Symphony at Flint Center in March 2011. In 2009 she received first prizes in the Ross McKee Piano Competition, the MTAC State Solo Competition, the El Camino Symphony Concerto Competition, and the Bradshaw and Buono International Piano Competition. She also won Grand Prize in the 2008 KDFC Classical Star Search for musicians under 20, for which Lang Lang was a guest judge. In 2003 she was the youngest prizewinner in the Chopin International Piano Competition in Asia.

An avid chamber musician, Rieko was a founding member of the award-winning Soleil Trio. The trio has represented the SF Conservatory for numerous events, including the Preparatory Appreciation Ceremony. Last January, the trio was flown to Santa Barbara to perform on the NPR show “From the Top” and won first prize in the chamber music division of the Mondavi Young Artists’ Competition. The trio was also chosen from a nation-wide search to perform for the American String Teachers’ Association National Conference - Opening Ceremony – in February. Rieko is currently the Principal Keyboardist for the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra. She is a junior at Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley.