Yuko Sano

Steinway Artist Yuko Sano was born in Tokyo and began her international career as a concert pianist at the age of 8 in Salzburg. She has performed across China, Europe, the UK, and South America as well as in Japan. Most recently, she was invited to perform Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto for the Buckingham Summer Festival 2022 and at Tokyo Bunka Kaikan. At the age of 15 she had her concerto debut performing Mozart alongside the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra and in October 2013, she made her London debut at the Southbank Centre for the festival ‘The Rest is Noise’. Since then she has performed at Abbey Road Studios, St. James’s Piccadilly, St. John’s Smith Square, St. Martin in the Fields, Steinway Hall, the Japanese Embassy in the UK, Draper’s Hall, and Senate House. For the past eight years she has been invited to perform at La Folle Journée Tokyo, Japan’s most eminent music festival. The British government has given her the prestigious “Tier-1 Exceptional Talent” UK visa in recognition of her remarkable international musical career.

Yuko Sano graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts (Geidai) after studying at the Liszt Music Academy in Budapest for one year with Falvai Sándor and Gulyás István. In 2013, she was awarded a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music, where she completed her MA with a Dip RAM distinction and graduated with the Walter MacFarren Prize, the Nancy Dickinson Award, and the Maud Hornsby Award. In 2016, she completed her Advanced Diploma at the Academy under the tutelage of Christopher Elton. She also studied chamber music with Michael Dussek, and music research with Roderick Chadwick.

Yuko has won both 1st prize and Grand Prix at the PIARA Piano Competition, top prize at the Burckhardt International Music Competition, and 1st prize at the Composition Competition in Tokyo, amongst others. Her debut album “Kotoba” was released in March 2018 and includes live recordings of Schumann, Liszt, Chopin, and the Japan premiere performance of Stephen Hough’s Piano Sonata No.1. The CD has met with critical acclaim, being featured as ‘Special selection of the month’ in Record Geijutsu Magazine, and one of Chopin Magazine’s ‘Top 4 selections’.

In 2014, Yuko was the first Japanese pianist to become a Young Steinway Artist, and she became a Steinway Artist in 2018. She was invited to New York to record for Steinway’s SPIRIO catalogue, available worldwide. In 2018, she was invited to China to give a concert tour for Steinway’s 165 years anniversary celebration, touring the country for 5 weeks.

Since March 2020, Yuko live-streamed weekly concerts every Sunday from her home in London. She presented different programmes every week based on audiences’ requests and, after a full year, successfully completed 50 concerts in March 2021. During this time, her livestreams reached over 50.000 views around the world.