Baroque Violin

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.

Violinist Joanna Huszcza is a passionate chamber musician, orchestra leader and soloist. Performing regularly at some of the most recognised venues and festivals. A native of Warsaw and currently living in Brussels, she completed her Master’s Degree at the Koninklijk Conservatorium in Den Haag in the Netherlands under the guidance of Enrico Gatti. Throughout her studies and professional career she has collaborated with some of the most inspiring personalities and pioneers in the world of Early Music and historically informed performance like Philippe Herreweghe, Ton Koopman, Marcel Ponseele, Marco Beasley, Enrico Gatti, Philippe Pierlot and Skip Sempe. She also toured extensively with groups as; Collegium Vocale Gent, Ricercar Consort, De Nederlandse Bachevereniging and Ensemble Aurora, among others. 

Those experiences have encouraged her to search for her own answers and have led her to find a musical context of her own. She has developed a particular interest in the vocal aspect of violin playing as one of the most important means to communicate with her audience. She equally enjoys performing on other instruments of the violin family such as; viola, violino piccolo as well as viola d’amore. Soon after her graduation, Joanna was invited to establish a violin class at the Early Music Department at the Music Academy in Łódź, Poland. She was later appointed the assistant to the violin class of Mira Glodeanu at the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles where she has been teaching regularly since 2015. Simultaneously coaching at numerous masterclasses in Europe, Asia and South America. She has been invited regularly to lead orchestras such as Il Gardellino, Les Agremens, Les Muffatti, Toujours Mozart Festival Orchestra, Cappella Cracoviensis, Köllner Academie, Luthers Bach Ensemble and Geneva Camerata. 

However dedicated to historically informed performance, Joanna often gets inspiration from a fruitful exchange of ideas sharing the stage with her colleagues from different fields such as jazz, contemporary, popular and world music and contemporary dance. Apart from live performances, she can be heard on labels as Alpha, Glossa, Naïve, Arcana, Ramée, Et’Cetera, Passacaille, Sony and Deutche Grammophon. 
Her violin was made by Hendrick Jacobs in Amsterdam in 1689 and was faithfully restored to original playing condition by Philippe Poissonniez.