I got to know Naoko Shimizu at Tanglewood in 1994. We were both fellows at the Tanglewood Music Center. I did not know her well, but there were only 12 violas there that summer, and so everyone knew each other at least a little. One of the 8 weeks we were there, Samuel Rhodes (violist of the Juilliard Quartet and faculty member at the Juilliard School) gave a masterclass. Naoko got up and played the Bartók concerto – and I mean PLAYED! She knocked it out of the park. Before then she hadn’t sat principal of the section in the orchestra and was very quiet and kept to herself. We had no idea who we were dealing with. Come to find out, she was a student of Nobuko Imai, one of the world’s leading violists and teachers, studying with her in Germany. The next five summers she went on to play at the Marlboro Festival and tour with Musicians from Marlboro.
I didn’t hear anything about her for a while, then I happened upon a blurb about her winning the ARD Competition in Munich in 1997 and the Concert Artists Guild competition in 1998.
Then, in 2001 I heard about her from a fellow Tanglewood alum – she’d won a Principal viola position with the Berlin Philharmonic. I was floored – this is like hearing that someone you’d gone to a summer program with had been elected president or senator.
Anyway, a couple of months ago I was doing one of my periodic Google searches for people I’d once known, and found links to a company which was producing recordings of Naoko’s. So, if you’re game, buy one and hear some truly phenomenal playing.
