Susanna Yoko Henkel

belongs to the leading violinists of the young generation. In 2007, the German 'Welt am Sonntag' declared her to be one of Anne Sophie Mutter’s heiresses, the renowned US music journal 'Strings' featured her on the cover of its January 2007 issue, and her recordings were highly praised in the trade press.

Susanna Yoko Henkel was born into a German- Japanese musical family and began to play the violin at the age of two, receiving lessons from her mother. Later, she received instruction from Conrad von der Goltz. At the tender age of 12, she enrolled at the Academy of Music in Freiburg/Germany, where she became a young protégé of Prof. Rainer Kussmaul. Later, she spent five years completing her studies at the Munich Academy under the tutelage of Ana Chumachenco.

During her studies Susanna Yoko Henkel already won numerous prizes at international competitions, among them the 'Queen Elisabeth Competition' in Brussels, the 'Mozart Competition' in Salzburg and the 'Tibor Varga Competition' in Sion. In 1998 she placed first at the German Music Competition in Berlin, followed by a scholarship from the Dortmund Mozart Society and the 'Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben'.

Her discography includes the Complete Recordings of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, the chamber music works of Maurice Ravel, Sergei Prokofjev and Richard Strauss, the solo works of Ysaye, Bartók and Isang Yun and duo works for violin and violoncello by Handel/Halvorsen, Eisler, Schulhoff and Kodály.

In addition to her career as a soloist Susanna Yoko Henkel is a passionate chamber musician. In 2006 she founded her own chamber music festival in Zagreb/Croatia. It is now well established as one of the country’s major cultural events and has been televised by Croatian public television HTV since 2007. Among her partners in chambermusic are Itamar Golan, Lauma Skride, Pavel and Maxim Rysanov at renowned music festivals such as the Ansbacher Bachwoche, the Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele, the Rheingau-Musik-Festival and the concerts in the Paris Chatelet. During the 2009/2010 season, Susanna Yoko Henkel is 'Artist in Residence' of the Duisburg Philharmonic and in this capacity will not only perform and record Tschaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, but also take part in several Chamber Music projects and Youth events.

Duisburger Philharmoniker (Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra)

In the 1930’s the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra found a music director of high international renown in Eugen Jochum, succeeded by his brother Georg Ludwig Jochum, who oversaw the difficult task of reconstructing the orchestra after the war and remained music director until 1970. A long period of artistic continuity is associated with the names of Miltiades Caridis, Lawrence Foster, Alexander Lazarew, and Bruno Weil. Since the jubilee season of 2002/2003, the British conductor Jonathan Darlington has guided the fortunes of the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra as its music director. He has since substantially moulded and refined the orchestra’s personality. The impressive list of past guest conductors features names such as Alberto Erede, Carlos Kleiber, and Horst Stein, as well as Christian Thielemann, Ton Koopmann, and Fabio Luisi. Over the years the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra has attracted on a regular basis such renowned soloists as the pianists Ferruccio Busoni, Vladimir Horowitz, Claudio Arrau, and Wilhelm Kempf, and the violinists Yehudi Menuhin, Henryk Szeryng, and Arthur Grumiaux. Today much sought after artists such as Bruno Leonardo Gelber, Anna Gourari, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Antoine Tamestit, and Claudio Bohorquez are welcome guests of the orchestra.

The Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra has always been committed to performing and commissioning new works. In recent times featured composers have included Wolfgang Rihm, Mauricio Kagel, Krzysztof Meyer, Jörg Baur, and Manfred Trojahn. Jonathan Darlington has continued to build on this tradition by initiating important premieres, such as the world premiere of Mauricio Kagel’s orchestral work “Broken Chords” and the German premiere of Tan Dun’s symphony “Heaven-Earth-Mankind”. The Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra’s success has been complemented by concert tours to the former Soviet Union, the Netherlands, Spain, Finland, Great Britain, Greece, and China.

For its 2009/2010 season, the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra has been honoured with the “Best Concert Programme” award by DMV (Deutscher Musikverleger-Verband e.V.).