No less than three kinds of performers are required for Japanese bunraku puppet theatre: the narrator, the shamisen player, and the puppeteers. Music inspired by that colourful and entertaining spectacle cries out to be part of the first afternoon concert at the Bořislavka Centre. Robert Schumann’s Fantasiestücke (Fantasy Pieces) is ideally suited for this informal event, where there is also room for a bit of seriousness in a Sonata by Johannes Brahms. Japanese cellist Sakura Toba is a protégée and pupil of one of today’s leading cello teachers, Jens Peter Maintz, and with her piano accompanist, also from Japan, she will prove that today one cannot differentiate and categorise interpretation on the basis of ingrained stereotypes about the cultures of the East and West.

Sakura gave her first solo recital in March 2019. In October of that year, she performed at Suntory Hall with Japan Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Ryusuke Numajiri as a soloist in Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme. Since then, she has performed with NHK Symphony Orchestra, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Gunma Symphony Orchestra, City of Kyoto Symphony Orchestra, Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa, Yokohama Sinfonietta, Mt. Fuji Philharmonic Orchestra, and Vienna Chamber Orchestra, working with conductors Koichiro Harada, Naoto Otomo, Junichi Hirokami, Joji Hattori, Takeshi Ooi, Kazuki Yamada, Kosuke Tsunoda, Nodoka Okisawa, Taichi Deguchi, Gen Ohta, and Stephanie Childress.

She has also appeared at Tokyo Spring Festival and many other recitals, and in 2020 was heard on NHK-FM’s classical programme Recital Passio.

In November 2019, she was awarded the 2nd Shinji Hattori Music Award, which is given to internationally promising young musicians.

Sakura plays on a cello made by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume in Paris, Rue Croix-des-Petits-Champs, in 1840, which is on loan from the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation. Sakura toured with Mutter’s Virtuosi in June and September 2023 in Europe. She has been a scholarship holder of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation since 2025.

Sakura began studying the cello at the age of six with Hakuro Mori. She has also attended masterclasses by Antonio Meneses and David Geringas at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana Summer Academy. She is a recipient of the 50th Ezoe Memorial Recruit Foundation Scholarship (since 2021) and the ROHM Music Foundation Scholarship (2021 and 2022).

She is currently studying at Berlin University of the Arts with Professor Jens-Peter Maintz since October 2022.

source: Sakura Toba

photo © Julia Wesely

Japanese-born pianist Naoko Sonoda is a prize-winner of several international piano and chamber music competitions, including those in Argento and Trieste (Italy), as well as the Łódź Competition (Poland). Solo and chamber music concert invitations have taken her throughout Europe, Asia, US and South America and to festivals such as Schleswig-Holstein Festival, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Verbier Festival. Chamber music partners include Santiago Cañón Valencia, Hartmut Rohde, Danjulo Ishizaka, Jens-Peter Maintz, and Andrei Ionita. She has performed with such renowned orchestras as the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, and has been heard in world-class venues, most notably the Berliner Philharmonie in Germany, Mariinsky Theatre Concert Hall in St.Petersburg, Wigmore hall in London, Teatro Mayor in Bogota and Carnegie Hall in NY.

Ms. Sonoda is in high demand as a collaborative pianist; she received prizes as best collaborative pianist at the International Music Competition in Markneukirchen (2013, 2019), the Lutosławski International Cello Competition in Warsaw (2015, 2018), the XV International Tchaikovsky Competition (2015, 2019) and Enescu International Music Competition as „best interpretation of Enescu‘s sonata“. Her performances are regularly broadcast on international radio and TV, including Kulturradio RBB, ZDF, SWR, and BR in Germany, NPO Radio 4 in Netherlands, Radio Romania, NHK-FM in Japan and the BBC. 

Ms. Sonoda studied with Yoko Okumura, Seiko Ezawa and Mikhail Voskresensky at the Toho Gakuen School of Music, before studying at the Universität der Künste in Berlin with Rainer Becker. She also studied chamber music with Tabea Zimmermann, Markus Nyikos and Natalia Gutman. 

She has taken masterclasses with Hans Leygraf, Ferenc Rados, Klaus Hellwig, Pascal Devoyon and Jacques Rouvier. After graduating, Naoko was engaged by the Universität der Künste in Berlin, the Hochschule für Musik Hanns-Eisler Berlin and the Franz Liszt Musikhochschule in Weimar as a collaborative pianist.

source: Naoko Sonoda

Artium by KKCG is a publicly accessible space for art of all genres, breathing artistic life into Bořislavka and enriching the cultural offerings in Prague 6 and the capital more generally. Artium regularly holds exhibitions, concerts, and other cultural events, and the unconventional space allows visitors to explore art across different genres, often intertwined to create a unique experience. During this year’s Dvořák Prague International Music Festival’s concerts at Artium, spectators can also enjoy an extensive exhibition of photographic installations by Jarmila Štuková titled "Us and the Others."

The concerts presented here as part of the Dvořák Prague Festival are organized for a good cause, with all proceeds supporting talented, young musicians.