Takehiro Konoe

Biography

Takehiro Konoe was born 1997 in Amsterdam.
He started playing violin at the age of four with Professor Coosje Wijzenbeek. A few months later he became a member of Prof. Wijzenbeek’s string ensemble Fancy Fiddlers where he played until 2015. In 2003, he  played with his twins sister Mayu a duet at a legendary dutch Violinist Theo Olof’s 80th birthday party and one year later, they played a duet again with Daniel Wayenberg. Two years later they were invited to play in Monaco at Monique Collignon’s fashion show.    

In August 2008, he and his sister  were chosen to perform at the Kinder Prinsengracht Concert in Amsterdam. They played J.S. Bach’s concerto for 2 violins in front of more than 3000 people, which was also live broadcast on TV.
   Later in that year, Takehiro and Mayu performed the same piece in the Concertgebouw Amsterdam with the Nederlands Theater Orkest, and a year later they performed there again with their quartet, Quartetto Piccolo.

   In 2011, Takehiro and his sister were honored to play Schumann’s Piano Quintet with Lucas Jussen at Menahem Pressler’s masterclass in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. With this piece, they have performed with amazing pianists, such as Menahem Pressler himself at the 125th anniversary of the Concertgebouw in December 2013, Nino Gvetadze, and Paolo Giacometti.
   In February 2014, he gave a repeat performance with this piece at the NEXT GENERATION Festival Bad Ragaz in Switzerland. Since then he has been invited every year to take part in this festival.
He was also a member of the "Ensemble Esperanza"of the Internationale Musikakademie Liechtenstein, with students from around the world from the age of 17 to 25.Their debut CD has released in 2017 that was presented with the "Special Achievement Award" at the International Classical Music Awards 2017.

   In May 2015, Takehiro and Mayu won the first prize at the Prinses Christina Competition, thereby they performed Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante K.364 with the Hague Philharmonic Orchestra (October 2015, Conducted by Richard Egarr), Sinfonietta Rotterdam (November 2016, Conducted by Conrad van Alpen) and Dvorak's String Quintet with the Rubens Quartet in different halls, including the Amsterdam Concertgebouw (February 2016). Also they were invited from "Musica Classica'' International Music festival at Joao Pessoa in Brazil in December 2015.

   Since September 2016 he is studying viola at the Conservatory of Amsterdam with Nobuko Imai & Francien Schatborn.
   In February 2017 he won the first prize at the 5th National Viola Competition in Amsterdam.
In summer 2017, He had a recital
tour in Japan.

   June 2018 he became a finalist at the 4th Tokyo International Viola Competition where he was awarded 'Suntory Foundation for Arts' and in September he won the third prize at the 67th ARD International Music Competition at Munich (Munchen).

November 2018 He played the viola concerto of Max Knigge at the 45th International Viola Congress in Rotterdam.

Beginning of 2019 He was invited to play the Bowen viola concerto with the Schleswig-Holstein Symphonie Orchester.
Later in October he made his debut in Naples where he
played a recital and Hoffmeister concerto with the Chamber orchestra of Caserta,
He took part of the String Quartet class at the Seiji Ozawa International Academy Switzerland in 2018 and 2019.

In 2020, He won the 1st prize at the 27th Johannes Brahms Competition.

He plays on a copy of a "Carlo Bergonzi" viola made by Roger Hargrave in 1991