Masaaki Suzuki

is a Japanese organist, harpsichordist, conductor, and the founder and music director of the Bach Collegium Japan. With this ensemble he is recording the complete choral works of Johann Sebastian Bach for the Swedish label BIS Records, for which he is also recording Bach's concertos, orchestral suites, and solo works for harpsichord and organ. He is also an artist-in-residence at Yale University and the principal guest conductor of its Schola Cantorum, and has conducted orchestras and choruses around the world.

Biography Suzuki was born in Kobe to parents who were both Protestant Christians Suzuki has as an adult joined the Reformed Church in Japan, a Calvinist denomination. Masaaki Suzuki began playing organ professionally at church services at the age of 12.

From 1981 to 1983 he was a harpsichord instructor at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Duisburg, Germany. In 1983 he returned to Japan, where he began teaching at Kobe Shoin Women's University. In 1990 he founded Bach Collegium Japan, a baroque orchestra and chorus. The group began performing concerts regularly in 1992, and made its first recordings three years later, when they began recording Bach's complete cantatas for the Swedish label BIS Records. He has also begun recording a cycle of Bach's organ music for the BIS label; the first release was in 2015.

Suzuki has also, with the Bach Collegium Japan, recorded the Requiem of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and choral music of Johann Rudolf Ahle, Georg Frideric Handel, Jan Dismas Zelenka, Heinrich Schutz, Johann Kuhnau, Marco Giuseppe Peranda, and others. As a soloist he has recorded music of Dietrich Buxtehude and Francois Couperin, among others. He and the Bach Collegium Japan have also recorded the Ninth Symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven in the arrangement by Wagner that replaces the orchestra with a solo piano, which is played on the recording by pianist Noriko Ogawa. With his brother, the baroque cello virtuoso Hidemi Suzuki, he has recorded chamber music by George Frideric Handel and others.

Suzuki is the founder of the early music department at the Tokyo University of the Arts and taught there until 2010. He is now Principal Guest Conductor of the Yale Schola Cantorum and Visiting Professor of Choral Conducting at Yale University As a guest conductor, Suzuki has led the Academy of Ancient Music, the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Danish National Symphony, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Baroque, Collegium Vocale Gent, Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Tonhalle Orchestra of Zurich. 2010: Diapason d'Or (for his recording of Bach's Motets) 2012: Bach Medal from the City of Leipzig and its Bach Archiv 2014: Suntory Music Prize 2020: Gramophone Classical Music Awards Choral category for his second recording of the St Matthew Passion of Johann Sebastian Bach