Yuko Hara

Viola

Yuko Hara studied at the Tokyo University of the Arts as well as at the Geneva Conservatory and at the Musik-Akademie Basel. She has won the Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition, the Tokyo Music Competition and the International Osaka Chamber Music Competition. As soloist, she has performed with the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra and has also played with the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo, the Orchestra of the Zurich Opera House and – as a Baroque viola player – with the Orchestra La Scintilla in Zurich as well as with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra.

Since completing her time as an Academy student, Yuko Hara is a versatile artist who has performed in Europe as well as in Asia. The primary focus of her artistic work is on chamber music, which she pursues with her string quartet Quatuor Ardeo in Paris and the two Bremen ensembles she co-founded – the Ensemble Volcania and the franz ensemble. She regularly gives concerts together with these ensembles at well-known festivals and is involved in CD productions. She won the Opus Klassik in 2020 with the franz ensemble and since 2018 has been the artistic director of her chamber music festival, the Festival Hirondelle in France. Yuko Hara also remains closely associated as a guest performer with The Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen.