Moné Hattori

Winner of five international violin competitions and protégée of legendary pedagogue Professor Zakhar Bron, Moné Hattori is fast emerging as one of the finest violinists of her generation.

Born in Tokyo in 1999, Hattori grew up within a family of musicians, with three generations of successful composers on her father’s side.  In 2004, aged five, she took her first violin lessons with her mother.  Following further studies in Japan with Aguri Suzuki, Yasuko Ohtani, and Akiko Tatsumi, at six years old she enrolled in The Music School for Children of the Toho Gakuen School of Music, and made her concerto debut with orchestra at the age of eight.  Hattori is now in her penultimate year at the Tokyo College of Music High School, and has been enrolled in Zakhar Bron’s prestigious Academy in Interlaken, Switzerland, since she was eight years old.

At the age of ten, Hattori became the youngest ever winner of the 11th International Competition for Young Violinists in Honour of Karol Lipinski & Henryk Wieniawski, Poland (2009), also taking First Prize at the All Japan Art Association Competition that same year.  She went on to win the Grand Prix and various special prizes at the 9th International Competition ‘Young Virtuosos’, Bulgaria (2013), and the 7th International Competition for Young Violinists (Senior Division), Novosibirsk (2013) – again the youngest ever violinist to hold such a title, winning the ’17 years and over’ category at the age of just 13.  Most recently, Hattori won the Grand Prix at the inaugural International Boris Goldstein Violin Competition in Bern, Switzerland (2015).

Hattori works regularly in Japan, performing at the most important concert venues and touring with major orchestras including the New Japan Philharmonic, NHK Symphony, Tokyo Philharmonic, and the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra.  Conductor collaborations include Justus Frantz, Junichi Hirokami, Norichika Iimori, Yuki Kakiuchi, Naoto Otomo, Gintaras Rinkevičius, Yutaka Sado, Tatsuya Shimono, and Sergey Smbatyan.

Outside of Japan, Hattori’s international festival appearances to date include the Aram Khachaturian International Festival as soloist with the State Youth Orchestra of Armenia, and the Trans-Siberian Arts Festival as soloist with the Novosibirsk Philharmonic Orchestra, and in chamber music with Vadim Repin.  Other chamber collaborations have included revered Russian cellist Natalia Gutman at the Interlaken Classics Festival, Switzerland, and duos with celebrated Japanese pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii.

Recent performance highlights include a tour of Italy and Switzerland with the European Union Youth Orchestra and Maestro Vladimir Ashkenazy, and 6-concert tours of Japan with both Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra and Japan Century Symphony Orchestra.

During the 2017/2018 concert season, Hattori works with leading orchestras including NHK Symphony, Tokyo Philharmonic, Tokyo Symphony, and Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra.  She also gives a major concert with the Hyogo PAC Orchestra & Yutaka Sado (to an audience of 14,000 in Tokyo, and televised nationwide in Japan), and makes her Scandinavian debut in recital at the Oslo Opera House.

Hattori’s debut recording – featuring Waxman’s Carmen Fantasy and Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No.1, with the Deutsches Sinfonie-Orchester Berlin and conductor Alan Buribayev – was released in Japan in October 2016 by Avex Classics International, Ltd., to great critical acclaim.

Moné Hattori plays a violin by Pietro Guarneri of Venice (1743) on loan from Ueno Fine Chemicals Industry, Ltd.