Yuki Ito & Daniel King Smith
Biography Yuki Ito & Daniel King Smith
Yuki Ito
whilst studying at the Royal College of Music in London, won 1st prize at both the International Brahms Competition in Austria and the UK’s most prestigious Windsor Festival International String Competition. He has since been enjoying an international career, appearing with major orchestras including the Philharmonia Orchestra, Klagenfurt Symphony, Slovenian Armed Forces Band, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony, Tokyo Symphony and Osaka Philharmonic Orchestras, as well as regularly giving recitals around the globe.
Amongst many esteemed artists of various artistic fields with whom he performed, including Vladimir Ashkenazy, Julian Lloyd Webber, Xavier de Maistre and Svetlana Zakharova, he has made a particularly strong musical relationship with the world-renowned composer/conductor Johan de Meij, who has dedicated numerous works (new works / arrangements) to him after a series of international collaborations. He also played for Seiji Ozawa’s special concert under his presence, and gave a private recital personally invited by HRH the Prince Edward.
He is widely known as specialist of Rachmaninoff’s works, demonstrated in such achievements as releasing his world-wide debut album “Rachmaninoff Complete Cello Works”, giving “All Rachmaninoff Recital” at Wigmore Hall as the first ever cellist in the legendary hall’s history, and writing his first monograph book on Rachmaninoff commemorating the composer’s 150th birth anniversary (due to be published in Autumn 2023), for which, together with his service to introducing the British cello music to wider audiences in Japan, he was awarded the Hideo Saito Memorial Award in 2019: one of the most honorable music awards in Japan.
Having been active also as conductor, he founded the Knightsbridge Orchestra in London in 2013 and, in 2016, he led the initial Japan tour of Camerata Luanda of Republic of Angola to success, historical event which marked the first tour in Japan ever by an African orchestra.
He plays a Goffriller Cello made in 1734 kindly loaned by Nippon Violin.
