HIDETARO SUZUKI has a unique career as a widely diversified musician in distinctly varied areas performing as a soloist with a great many orchestras in the U.S., Canada, throughout Europe, Hong Kong, and Japan. He also has conducted orchestras in Québec, Indianapolis, Hong Kong, and Japan, and since 1961, he has been an international recitalist with his pianist wife Zeyda as collaborator. He combined those impressive artistic activities with 44 years as concertmaster of two major orchestras: the Indianapolis Symphony and the Québec Symphony.

As a chamber music performer, he created and participated in the Bay Chamber Concerts (Camden, Maine) with his string quartet, founded and performed in “Suzuki & Friends” chamber music series in Indianapolis for 27 years, and participated in the festivals of Marlboro (Vermont), Stratford (Canada), Chautauqua (New York), Grand Teton Music Festival (Wyoming), Vevey (Switzerland) among many others.

In addition, he has taught and coached aspiring young musical talents at Indiana University in Bloomington, Butler University in Indianapolis, University of Illinois, Florida State University, Lával University in Canada, le Conservatoire de Musique de la Province du Québec, Tōho School of Music in Tokyo, and others. During the past several years, he has repeatedly participated in benefit concerts to support the victims of catastrophic earthquakes and tsunamis, including displaced and relocated children and orphans. He and Zeyda are returning to Japan in October 2019 for a concert tour.

Suzuki is a laureate of the Tchaikovsky, Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, and Montréal International Violin Competitions. He studied the violin from age 4 with Shinichi Suzuki (no relation) before his famous Suzuki Method was launched; then, with Saburo Sumi and Paul Kling at Toho in Tokyo; and ultimately with the magnificent violinist Efrem Zimbalistat the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

Pianist ZEYDA RUGA SUZUKI’s first language was music which she learned to read at age 3 before she learned Spanish in her native Cuba. At age 6, she entered Havana’s Municipal Conservatory of Music and at age 12, she received her Diplomas in Piano and Music Theory. At age 16, she entered Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music to study with Rudolf Serkin, and at age 20, she received her Artist Diploma. Later, she earned her doctorate of music from Laval University, where she served as Associate Professor and Head of the Chamber Music Department. She also served as Visiting Professor of Piano at Indiana University in South Bend. Her first piano recital was at age 8 for the Jeunesses Musicales de Cuba, and since, she has played numerous recitals in Cuba, the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Japan. At age 14, she made her concerto début with the Sinfonietta de La Habana performing Mozart’s D minor Piano Concerto, and with the Havana Symphony playing Beethoven’s B flat Major Piano Concerto. She has also been frequent soloist of the Québec Symphony and L’Orchestre de Radio Canada under Pierre Dervaux, Françoys Bernier, and Fernand Quattrocchi, the Tokyo and the Sapporo Symphonies under Hidetaro Suzuki, the Grand Teton Music Festival and the Hong Kong Philharmonic under Ling Tung,  the Indianapolis Symphony under Raymond Leppard, the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra under Kirk Trevor, the South Bend Symphony under Tsung Yeh, the Roanoke Symphony under David Wiley,  among many others.  A sought out piano collaborator with the world’s most distinguished artists, her favorite is her husband Taro, with whom she has 3 children, 5 grandchildren, and one great granddaughter.