Ryo Terakado was born in 1961 in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. He started to play violin at the age of 4, and won 2nd prize in the All Japan Youth Musical Competition when he was 14. Ryo studied violin, chamber music and conducting at the Toho Gakuen School of Music. In 1983, he took third prize in the All Japan Music Competition. Upon graduating from Toho Gakuen, he was invited to become concertmaster of the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, a position he held for two years.
Meanwhile, Ryo’s interest in Baroque music had been developing for some time: at the age of 19, he started to teach himself Baroque violin, and in 1985, he moved to the Netherlands to study the instrument at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague under the guidance of Sigiswald Kuijken, receiving a soloist diploma in 1989.
Since 1987, he has performed as concertmaster with Baroque orchestras in Europe and Japan including La Petite Bande, Les Arts Florissants, La Chapelle Royale, Collegium Vocale Gent, and Tokyo Bach Mozart Orchestra; he made regular appearances with these orchestras to perform the concertos of composers including Bach, Vivaldi and Mozart. Ryo is also the current concertmaster of Bach Collegium Japan, and is invited frequently to Italy, Poland, France and Australia as a soloist. Since 1994, he has been one of the featured artists in the Hokutopia International Music Festival in Tokyo, where he made his debut as a conductor. His repertoire as a conductor includes operas by Monteverdi, Purcell, Rameau, Gluck, Haydn and Mozart.
Ryo teaches at the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague (Netherlands), is Artist in Residence at KCB (Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel - The Flemish conservatoire of Brussels) and teaches at his alma mater, Toho Gakuen School of Music (Japan). He regularly teaches at Yonsei University in Seoul and performs in concerts in Korea.
His discography can be found on the Ricercar (Belgium), Accent (Germany) BIS (Sweden) and Denon (Japan) labels.
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