Toyohiko Satoh

Who is Toyohiko Satoh?

Toyohiko Satoh - is a Japanese lutenist and composer.

At Rikkyo University in Tokyo, Satoh studied music history with Tatsuo Minagawa and guitar with Kazuhito Ohosawa. He gave his first guitar recital in the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan concert hall in 1965. At Rikkyo, he also began his studies of the lute.

In 1968, Satoh came to Europe; he studied lute with the pioneering lutenist Eugen Müller-Dombois at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland. Two years later, in 1970, he recorded the first LP devoted entirely to the solo Baroque lute; since then he has recorded extensively for Philips, Telefunken, EMI, Harlekijn, and Channel Classics Records. One of his recordings won the Edison Prize. He has been involved in over 50 ensemble recordings, with such artists as Gustav Leonhardt, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and Elly Ameling.

He has concertized throughout the world as soloist. His October, 1982 debut at the Carnegie Recital Hall in New York was praised in the New York Times; the critic Tim Page praised his "intensity and sense of drama" and "electric tension and rhythmic spring".