Quatuor Ardeo

Yuko Hara, born in 1987 in New York, studied at the Tokyo University of the Arts where she obtained her bachelor degree with the "Douseikai" prize. She arrived in Switzerland in 2009 to continue her studies for master's degree at the conservatory in Geneva with Nobuko Imai and at the music academy in Basel with Rainer Schmidt (Hagen Quartet).

She is a prize winner of the Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition and the Tokyo Music Competition. As a soloist she performed with the Geidai Philharmonic and the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra.

She completed two orchestra academy programs; one with the Philharmonia Zurich / Orchestra of Zurich Opera House (2012-2014) and another with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen (2015-2017) where she now collaborates regularly as a guest player among other orchestras as NHK Symphony Orchestra, Yomiuri Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo and the Geneva Camerata, Switzerland.

Her passion for historical performance practice led her to attend masterclasses with Midori Seiler and Thomas Albert and to participate in projects with the Orchestra La Scintilla in Zurich, Hofmusikakademie of the Schwetzingen Festspiele and Freiburger Barockorchester, Germany.

She has always been an engaged string quartet player as she worked as a member of Stella Quartet (2003-2009) and Verus String Quartet (2009-2012) in Japan, with whom she did not only performed throughout Japan and internationally but also won several prizes and scholarships as 3rd prize at the International Osaka Chamber Music Competition. In 2016 she joined the Quatuor Ardeo based in Paris.

August 2017