Coco Tomita, Yume Tomita, Simon Callaghan
Biographie Coco Tomita, Yume Tomita, Simon Callaghan
Coco Tomita
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.
Yume Tomita
was born in the UK in 2008 and began to play the violin when she was five years old. She was invited to give her first recital at the age of seven in Italy, and in the following year she was awarded a place at the Yehudi Menuhin School where she studied with Natasha Boyarsky, Diana Galvydyte and is currently studying with Ning Kam.
Within the last two years, Yume has won 1st prize at the Ilona Feher International Violin Competition in Hungary (2019), 2nd prize at the Andrea Postacchini International Violin Competition in Italy (2019) and 3rd prize at the Grumiaux International Violin Competition in Belgium (2018).
Yume has given numerous performances in the UK, Austria and Italy, and in July 2019, she made her concerto debut with Anima Musicae Chamber Orchestra in Budapest.
Yume has also received guidance from renowned violinists including Zakhar Bron, Alina Ibragimova, Shlomo Mintz and Qian Zhou in various international masterclasses.
Simon Callaghan
performs internationally as a soloist and chamber musician, in parallel with a highly successful career as a recording artist. A favourite performer at the internationally-renowned Husum Festival of Piano Rarities in Germany, Callaghan’s recent sell-out concert was praised by VAN Magazine as a “cleverly curated recital full of discoveries” and by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as “technically brilliant”. Callaghan has developed a wide following and appears on a regular basis in the UK’s major concert halls, and on tours to Asia, North America and Europe. Recital partners have included Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Nicholas Daniel, Adrian Brendel, Feng Ning, Samuel West, Prunella Scales and Timothy West. BBC Young Musician of the Year Finalist Coco Tomita and Callaghan have a successful duo partnership which saw their first record released in 2022 on Orchid Classics. He is also a founding member of the London Piano Quartet, joining colleagues from the renowned Piatti Quartet to showcase the repertoire for piano quartet with a particular focus on revivifying works that have fallen into obscurity.
Simon Callaghan’s distinguished and eclectic discography includes recordings for Hyperion, Nimbus and Lyrita. He has a strong profile on BBC Radio3 and on a variety of streaming platforms, his most recent single on Apple Music with Coco Tomita surpassing 1 million streams in the first month of its release. He is a strong social media enthusiast, using it as a form of promotion for classical music in general but seeing it as a particular tool in his advocacy of the rare and unexplored.
Callaghan’s broad repertoire encompasses the standard works of the 19th and 20th centuries and increasingly concentrates on much that is little known, examples including Bernhard Scholz, Josef Rheinberger and Carl Reinecke. A cornerstone of his work is his commitment to British music, and he has begun a series on Lyrita, recording world premieres of British concertos with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Callaghan has also made first recordings of the complete piano music by Rebecca Clarke, George Dyson and William Busch. He has recorded four albums for Hyperion’s celebrated The Romantic Piano Concerto series. His first disc for Hyperion, with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Martyn Brabbins, formed part of his PhD at the Royal Northern College of Music and was praised by BBC Radio 3’s Andrew McGregor: “I have nothing but praise for the performances... impressive pianism”.
In 2020, Simon recorded L’histoire du Babar with actor Miriam Margolyes. The album received five stars from The Independent, reviewer Michael Church commenting that: “here, thanks to Harry Potter actor Miriam Margolyes’s artistry and Simon Callaghan’s excellent pianism, is Poulenc’s delightful musical response. And as I listened to this recording, I found the original drawings reappearing in my mind with all their detail intact – extraordinary. It lasts just 30 minutes, but my god does it resonate.” Simon Callaghan’s reputation and experience in chamber music led to his appointment as Artistic Director at London’s celebrated Conway Hall, only the sixth incumbent since the founding of the series in 1887. He was elected a Steinway Artist in 2012.
