Ayako Tsuruta

Pianist born in Japan; she moved to Connecticut with her family in 1980 and studied with Leena K. Crothers at the Neighborhood Music School in New Haven, with Josef Raieff at the Juilliard School, with Claude Frank at Yale University, with Maria Curcio-Diamand in England and with Marek Jablonski at the University of Alberta. As a soloist she has appeared with the Juilliard Symphony, among others; with the violinist Annette-Barbara Vogel she has given concerts in North America, Germany and Lebanon. She taught at the University of Alberta and the University of Missouri. In Columbia (Missouri) she directs the Odyssey Chamber Music Series and is artistic director of the Plowman Chamber Music Competition. On the album French Women Composers (2011) she plays, with Annette-Barbara Vogel, Louise Farrenc’s Sonata No. 2 op. 39, Lili Boulanger’s Nocturne and works by Pauline Viardot-Garcia.