| Biography | Masaaki Suzuki (born 29 April 1954) is a Japanese organist, harpsichordist and conductor, and the founder and musical director of the Bach Collegium Japan.
He was born in Kobe to parents who were both Christians and amateur musicians. He studied composition and organ at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, and was later taught harpsichord and organ by Ton Koopman and Piet Kee and improvisation by Klaas Bolt at the Sweelink Conservatory in Amsterdam.
In 1983 he began teaching at Kobe Shoin Women's University, and founded Bach Collegium Japan, a baroque orchestra, in 1990. The group began giving concerts regularly in 1992, and made its first recordings three years later. He directs them from the harpsichord and they are currently recording Bach's complete cantatas for BIS records. He is also currently recording Bach's complete works for harpsichord and is one of the few keyboard players to have recorded all four books of Bach's Clavier-Übung (including book 3, which is for organ). In 1995 he commenced a project to record Bach's complete sacred cantatas on the BIS label.
He was a professor of organ and harpsichord at the Tokyo University of the Arts. As of July 1, 2009, Mr. Suzuki is Visiting Professor of Choral Conducting and conductor of Yale Schola Cantorum in a joint appointment between the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and the Yale School of Music.
Suzuki was awarded the 2012 Bach Prize, awarded by the Royal Academy of Music and sponsored by the Kohn Foundation. |