The Nippon Music Foundation has facilitated the loan to the Japanese violinist, who will celebrate the 50th anniversary of her debut in 2025

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Violinist Yasuko Ohtani ©︎ Yukisuke Fushimi

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Japan’s Nippon Music Foundation has announced the loan of the 1702 ‘Lord Newlands’ Stradivari violin to Yasuko Ohtani.

Under the foundation’s ‘Category C’ criteria, the loan period will be for up to one year for a specific performance purpose. Ohtani will celebrate the 50th anniversary of her debut in 2025.

The violin takes its name from Lord Newlands (1825-1906), formerly William Hozier, 1st Baron Newlands. Gand & Bernadel bought the violin in 1876 from a French amateur player by the name of Wittering, before selling it to instrument dealer David Lawrie in 1877. Laurie brought the instrument to Scotland and sold it to amateur player William Croall, who kept it until around 1884. Following this, Lord Newlands acquired the violin and kept it until his death.

The violin passed through the possession of Robert E Brandt, W.E. Hill & Sons and an anonymous owner throughout the 20th century, until it was acquired by Nippon Music Foundation in 2002.

Japanese violinist Ohtani is a graduate of the Tokyo University of the Arts and its doctoral programme. She began her solo career while still a student, and was invited to perform recitals in Vienna, Rome, Cologne, Berlin, and other cities, as well as at the Toronto Music Festival and the city of Salzburg, and gave a recital at the Vienna Philharmonic in 2017.

She has performed with many orchestras both in Japan and abroad, including the NHK Symphony Orchestra, the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, and the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine.

In 2019, she released a CD of Franck and Poulenc’s violin sonatas in collaboration with piano virtuoso Itamar Golan. Other CDs include After a Dream, La Traviata Fantasy, and an album of Richard Strauss’ Violin Sonata and Beethoven Sonata No. 5.

As an author, she wrote a book entitled Violinist, Kyo mo Hashiru! (Kadokawa) in 2018. She also hosts and performs on a regular television show Ongaku Kousaten with rakugo artist Koasa Shunput for BS TV Tokyo, and won the Agency for Cultural Affairs Art Festival Award in 2010.

Ohtani is currently a professor at Tokyo College of Music and a special professor at Tokyo University of the Arts Junior Academy. She is the chairperson of the Nerima Ward Cultural Promotion Association, a Kawasaki City Cultural Ambassador, and a Kochi Prefecture Tourism Ambassador, as well as director of the Japan Symphony Foundation and the Japan Federation of Musicians. 

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