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1.11.2001 00:05
Social life takes a back seat for violin prodigy
For now, the love of music is enough, says 16-year-old Shunsuke Sato. Girls will have to wait.
That's sort of the way the latest rising star in the violin world summed up his life. These days the Philadelphia-based prodigy has his hands full with school (he likes languages), practice and spending Saturdays at the Juilliard School in New York, where he's a student of Dorothy DeLay, the legendary mentor to Itzhak Perlman, among other greats.
He's also on the road a couple of times a month, giving recitals and soloing with orchestras. Saturday he joins Larry Rachleff and the Rhode Island Philharmonic for Lalo's
Symphonie espagnole,
a work he first performed in part when he was 10 during a youth concert with the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Two summers ago, he played the entire Lalo at the Aspen Festival. The conductor for that performance was Rachleff, who invited the young fiddler to come to Rhode Island -- his first trip to the state.
Shunsuke picked up the violin in his native Japan when he was about 2. His mom, a pianist who "knows nothing about the violin," figured the instrument would be just right for a toddler -- "small and had four strings." Shunsuke was sent packing to the neighborhood Suzuki school.
The Satos moved to the United States, when Shunsuke's father spent time studying at Penn State. He has since moved back to Japan, where he teaches economics, but Shunsuke and his mother stayed so that he could continue his studies at Juilliard and begin building a career.
When he was just 12, Shunsuke became the youngest player ever to join the roster of Young Concert Artists, the organization that provides a push to up-and-coming talent. YCA lined up his New York recital debut last October, and will present his Washington, D. C., debut later this month.
But at this point, Shunsuke and his management are taking it slowly. He's staying away from competitions and recordings.
"I don't think musicians can be compared to one another," he says of contests. The problem with records, he adds, is that they're "carved in stone," something he feels he should hold off on for a while.
Bumpy adjustment to high school
Shunsuke was speaking from his home in Philly, just around the corner from the famed Academy of Music. Riccardo Muti used to live in his building when he was music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Providing the accompaniment to the conversation were Shunsuke's three dozen parakeets -- an interest he calls a "quasi-hobby.".
Shunsuke had just gotten home from the local high school, where he has had to struggle to get the powers that be to understand he does not lead the life of a normal teen. His first couple of years there were "a complete disaster," he said. The occasional concert tour meant he missed classes and fell behind in his work.
But a helpful English teacher came to his defense and hooked him up with a more sympathetic group of teachers, who were willing to cut him some slack.
"They finally realized what I was doing," said Shunsuke, who practices about four hours a day, "and that helped a lot."
1692 Stradivarius
Shunsuke performs on a 1692 Stradivarius on loan from Juilliard.
Perhaps the high point in his brief career (he's been playing professionally with orchestras for three or four years) was a concert in France with Russia's St. Petersburg Symphony. He was booked to appear with another orchestra, but that one had to cancel and the touring St. Petersburg came to the rescue.
But he's played with a lot of decent American orchestras, too, including the National, Minnesota and Baltimore symphonies.
At this point, Shunsuke said he is fondest of French music, hence his interest in the Lalo, which will cap off the first half of Saturday's concert.
Rachleff will open the evening with Mozart's
Marriage of Figaro
overture, and wind things up with Shostakovich's first symphony, written while the composer was still a student.
Saturday's concert takes place at 8 p.m. at Veterans Memorial Auditorium. Tickets range from $25 to $45, with discounts for seniors, students and groups. Call 831-3123.
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