Hailed by critics and audiences alike, Japanese violinist Coco Tomita first gained recognition after winning the BBC Young Musician 2020 Strings Category. Her success led to an invitation to record a debut album with Orchid Classics, numerous approaches by music festivals across the UK, and an extensive concert tour of Japan. She was named as ‘One to watch’ by Gramophone Magazine and ‘Young Classical Star’ by Classic FM. Her debut album ‘Origins’ received a succession of rave reviews from The Strad, Gramophone Magazine, BBC Music Magazine and The Guardian, among others, and was selected as ‘Disc of the month’ by Apple in April 2022.
Orchid Classics have invited Coco to record a second album. Due for release in autumn 2024 it will feature music by Debussy, Enescu, Janáček & Prokofiev.
Based in London and Berlin, Coco recently completed her triumphant debut tour of Japan, highlights of which were her concerto debut with Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Masahiko Enkoji, and Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Axelrod at the Suntory Hall, Tokyo. She has also appeared as a soloist with London Mozart Players, Philharmonie Baden-Baden and Bath Philharmonia.
In recital Coco performs regularly with Simon Callaghan. This season she makes her debut at the Dubai Opera and has several appearances around the UK. Last season Coco made debuts at Harrogate International Festival and St George’s Hall, Bristol.
She has won numerous prizes at international competitions and festivals, including Golden Medals at the Vienna International Music Competition and Berliner International Music Competition, Carl Flesch Prize at the Carl Flesch Academy, and 1st prize at the Eastbourne Symphony Orchestra Young Soloist Competition where she also won the Duke of Devonshire Award.
Born into a musical family, Coco began to play the violin when she was four years old. At age ten she made her debut at Cadogan Hall, London, with Southbank Sinfonia and has performed in Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and the UK.
Coco began her early training at the Yehudi Menuhin School with renowned pedagogues Natasha Boyarsky and Lutsia Ibragimova. Since 2021, she has been studying under the guidance of Professor Kolja Blacher at the Hochschule fur Musik Hanns Eisler, Berlin.
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Reviews
The BBC young violinist’s debut is a winner
For a young musician, the stuff dreams are made of: Coco Tomita won the strings category of BBC Young Musician 2020 and was signed by a record company the next day. COCO ‘ORIGINS’ (Orchid Classics), with the pianist Simon Callaghan, is the Japanese violinist’s first album. Tomita attended the Yehudi Menuhin School, Stoke d’Abernon, Surrey (where this was recorded last summer), and now studies in Berlin.
The playing, technically dazzling and characterful, bursts with musical intelligence, with the experienced Callaghan an expressive duo partner. The choice of repertoire, of her own devising, is a refreshing mix: George Enescu, Francis Poulenc, Lili Boulanger, Jenő Hubay (the spectacular Carmen Fantasy), Maurice Ravel (his Sonata No 2 in G major) and, to end, Debussy’s wistful little Beau soir. Tomita plays a Stradivarius on loan from Beare’s International Violin Society. The sound of the recording, too, is top-notch.
— The Observer, Fiona Maddocks, February 2022
A head-turning debut from BBC Young Musician strings winner
Following Coco Tomita’s win in the strings category of BBC Young Musician 2020, Orchid Classics invited the UK/Germany-based Japanese violinist to record her debut album. While Tomita – also a gold medalist at the Vienna International and Berlin International competitions – is hardly the first violinist to record a French and folk-themed disc, this crisply captured programme, attentively partnered by Simon Callaghan, is outstanding.
Enescu’s Ménétrier (‘The Fiddler’) is quite the opening gambit. Tomita’s tone is so luminously direct, and her singing quality, almost jazzy inflections and crisp rhythmic impetus so captivating, that it’s a while before you’re even registering her airily dispatched technical brilliance. I love how the Enescu’s final, pizzicato D chord is followed by the Poulenc Sonata, because while Tomita and Callaghan’s opening D minor explosion is a shock for its sharp-edged punch, it also has the air of continuation.
Then there’s the sinuously curling, time-suspended beauty that Tomita weaves for Lili Boulanger’s Nocturne; her more softly cloaked tone for Debussy’s Beau soir; and the world of colour and emotion that she packs into just the first phrase of Hubay’s glittering Fantaisie brillante, moving from a piercingly poignant wail to sweet tenderness. More please.
— The Strad, Charlotte Gardner, March 2022
Superb debut album
This superb debut album emerged from Coco Tomita’s triumph in the Strings category of the 2020 BBC Young Musician competition. Playing a Stradivarius, the Japanese violinist gives us a well-chosen selection of (mainly) early 20th-century music for violin and piano. Sonatas by Poulenc and Ravel, each brilliantly differentiated and characterised, reveal a big musical personality. Tomita and pianist Simon Callaghan really have the measure of these complementary—and quirky—pieces. Ravel’s “Blues” movement (from Violin Sonata No. 2 in G Major) is done superbly. Hubay’s “Carmen Fantaisie” sizzles, the Lili Boulanger “Nocturne” has a lovely lyricism and the Enescu solo (“Impressions d’enfance”) dances enticingly. The Heifetz-arranged Debussy “Beau soir” makes a deliciously languid coda.
— Apple, March 2022