Wang Tao & Akimi Fukuhara
Biographie Wang Tao & Akimi Fukuhara
Wang Tao
The youngest clarinet professor at the Central Conservatory of Music (CCOM) in Beijing, Wang Tao has been working at this prestigious institution since his graduation with bachelor’s and master’s degrees. He further studied in London under clarinetist Michael Collins. In 2011, Tao was invited as a senior visiting scholar to New England Conservatory in the U.S., working with clarinet maestro Richard Stolzman.
Since 2017, Wang Tao has been the only clarinet artist in China who makes recital tours every year, with 39 Tribute to Schubert concerts in 2017, 21 performances in his national tour of Spin in 2018 and 17 performances for Spin II in 2019. Affected by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, Tao’s national tour Departure from Beethoven began in September 2020 around 11 Chinese cities. He is undoubtedly one of the most influential wind instrument artists in China. Among his collaborations with various Chinese orchestras, Tao has once substituted for clarinetist Sabine Meyer as a soloist with Hangzhou Philharmonic Orchestra. As the only Chinese musician invited to Deutche Grammophon’s 120th anniversary celebration, Wang Tao played with English violinist Daniel Hope and the Zurich Chamber Orchestra. He has released 11 solo albums, crossing borders between genres like pop, jazz and fusion. He is counted as the earliest Chinese wind instrument player releasing records under Deutsche Grammophon’s prestigious yellow label. His albums have received more than 100 million hits on digital platforms, acquiring for the clarinetist more than 1 million followers on social media. Wang Tao has founded different ensembles, including the Cloud & Quartet (for clarinet, violin, cello and piano), Ange Clarinet Quartet and Fold Ensemble (for clarinet, classical ballet and traditional Chinese instruments), which cover various artistic domains and have been invited to perform at the Beijing Modern Music Festival in the past decade.
Born in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, Wang Tao started his musical education playing the erhu at the age of 4, played cello at the age of 5 and picked up the clarinet when he was 9 years old. Tao started performing on stage at the age of 11, giving recitals in many countries and areas including mainland China, the United States, France, Austria, Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Among numerous prizes he has won are the First Prize of the Second China National Youth Clarinet Competition and the Prize of Performing Chinese Musical Works. He is acclaimed as “a performer of enthusiasm, onstage charms, virtuosity and uniqueness.” During his studies in China, Tao learned from the best clarinetists of the nation, including professors Xiang Zhenlong, Yu Bo, Zhang Wu and Tao Chunxiao. In recognition of his artistic achievements, Tao was awarded the title of Honorary Citizen of the City of Senna in France, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and France. He was also invited to make a speech as the Youth Leader at the Boao Forum for Asia and was received by the Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.
Prior to the collaboration with Swiss harpsichordist Michel Kiener on the album Schubert, six albums of pop music by Wang Tao have already been released in Taiwan, which brought him a Best Instrumental Album Award from the Golden Melody Awards in Taiwan. He has also recorded for CCOM a dozen audio and visual course works, which have become considered some of the essential learning materials for clarinet students in the last century in China. His signing with UMG brought forth, considering the great number of his non-classical-music followers, a fusion album titled Night & Day which, once released, rocketed up as one of the most played by radio stations all over the country with the track “Passing Day,” in cooperation with female singer Tan Weiwei, winning numerous pop music awards.
In 2017, after completing the recording of Schubert’s works at the Salle de Musique of La Chaux-de-Fonds in Switzerland in collaboration with harpsichordist Michel Kiener, the album of Wang Tao was announced on August 18 by Garand Wu, the managing director of Universal Music Great China, as the first Deutsche Grammophon certified vinyl record to be released in China. The year 2018 saw the recording of the album Spin at Karuizawa Ohga Hall, where the design and construction of the wooden acoustical materials were selected by Norio Ohga, the former president and chairman of Sony Corporation, and an outstanding amateur conductor. According to Akimi Fukuhara, the pianist who paired with Wang Tao in recording the new album, “it is an interesting experience working with Mr. Wang Tao, who has a great passion, an enthusiasm, for music.” Mr. Takashima, the recording engineer for the album, remarked, “Mr. Wang’s clarinet has produced a wonderful sound, which goes excellent with Fukuhara’s piano performance.” About this album the renowned clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, who is also Wang Tao’s mentor, commented, “In the hands and breath of Tao, the clarinet becomes an amazing contrast of technical mastery coupled with soulful singing lines. Imagination and surprise in every phrase.”
At the press conference for the album release, Mr. Okada, the head of the wind instruments department of Yamaha China, announced that it had finally found its first clarinetist to start a collaboration in its wind instrument projects, and that along with Wang Tao, Yamaha China would be engaged in the promotion of clarinet playing in China. And the next year, the First Yamaha National Clarinet Competition was hosted around 10 Chinese cities, receiving about 1000 participants with Wang Tao as the presiding member of its jury. Besides all these activities, Wang Tao is also the promotion ambassador for G. Henle Verlag in Germany, the champion of the foundation of China’s Clarinetists’ Union (CCU), and the creator of Beyond Joviality Music – China’s first independent establishment of clarinet teaching which, founded in 2019, has become one of the most sought-after platforms in China with approximately 1000 learners following its programs.
Parallel to his onstage performances, Wang Tao is versatile in different professions and domains. He has played leading male roles for movies and TV, published novels, written columns for magazines, and hosted radio shows, earning a great number of followers outside of the domain of clarinet playing. More than a classical music star, Wang Tao is an influencer from whom a single post on Weibo can quite easily reach millions of people, and whose performances enjoy box-office records. For him, however, the greater happiness is seeing the myriad young clarinet players, taking him as a music hero, practice with great enthusiasm and a greater ambition to go much farther than what he has already achieved.
Akimi Fukuhara
Praised in the New York Times for her “energetic” and “shapely read” performances, pianist Akimi Fukuhara has appeared at many prestigious venues including Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, the Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Salle Cortot in Paris, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, The National Concert Hall in Taipei, The Oriental Arts Center in Shanghai, the Beijing Concert Hall.
Ms. Fukuhara was born in Osaka, Japan, and studied under the tutelage of Mie Ishii Matsuoka in Tokyo. She made her recital debut at the age of 12 in Tokyo’s prestigious Suntory Hall. L’enfant de la musique, the live recording of her recital at Hamarikyu-Asahi Hall in Tokyo at the age of 14 was released under the Platz Label, and is available today from the Naxos Music Library.
She came to the United States at the age of 15, going on to study at San Francisco Conservatory of Music with Mack McCray and Sharon Mann. At the age of 17, Akimi recorded her second solo album, Akimi Plays Chopin and Liszt. Subsequently, Akimi was awarded the Susan W. Rose Scholarship at the Juilliard School, where she studied with Yoheved Kaplinsky.
Beginning in 2010 Ms. Fukuhara has collaborated extensively with the legendary cellist, Christine Walevska. Together they recorded three albums and have toured throughout Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, and Ecuador, and New York. One concert was featured on NHK-FM’s Best of Classics radio program, and the live recording was released from Japan Westminster in 2011. In 2014 they recorded an album sponsored by the ChiMei Museum in Taiwan. Ms. Fukuhara was also named a CHANEL Pygmalion Days Artist in Japan.
In 2017, she released her third solo album Brahms: Klavierstücke which was featured in the December 2017 issue of Record Gaijutsu magazine, the premier classical music magazine in Japan.
As a chamber musician, she has performed and recorded with renowned artists including Christine Walevska, Nathaniel Rosen, Pierre Amoyal, Toby Hoffman, Heiichiro Ohyama, Fred Sherry, Alexander Barantschik, Wang Tao, and many others. Ms. Fukuhara has recorded three albums under the ShoFuSha label, and two more are in the works.
In February 2019, Akimi will be performing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Kazuyoshi Akiyama.
