Toyohiko and Miki Satoh's "Ayumi" on Carpe Diem and Linn's Master-Quality download

I love Satoh-san's lute playing since my boyhood... how couldn't I... he studied with (beloved) Eugen-Muller Dombois at Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basle, Switzerland...

I was lucky enough to attend at three of his concerts, solo and ensemble playing, and also the honor to record him during a concert... I still cherish the open-reel master...

Here is his last recording, dueting with his daughter, Miki.

Mr. Satoh's playing has a clipped cool grandeur, and there were an electric tension and rhythmic spring to much of his work.' The New York Times

Toyohiko Satoh:

Toyohiko Satoh, born in 1943, is a Japanese lutenist and composer.

Satoh studied music history at Rikkyo University in Tokyo with Tatsuo Minagawa and guitar with Kazuhito Ohosawa. He gave his first guitar recital in the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan concert hall in 1965. He also began his studies of the lute while at Rikkyo.

In 1968, Satoh came to Europe; he studied lute with the pioneering lutenist Eugen Müller-Dombois at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland. Two years later, in 1970, he recorded the first LP devoted entirely to the solo Baroque lute. One of his recordings won the Edison Prize. He has been involved in over 50 ensemble recordings, with such artists as Gustav Leonhardt, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and Elly Ameling.

Satoh has concertized throughout the world as soloist. His October, 1982 debut at the Carnegie Recital Hall in New York was praised in the New York Times; the critic Tim Page praised his ‘intensity and sense of drama' and ‘electric tension and rhythmic spring'. He has also performed and recorded with many chamber ensembles, including the group Alba Musica Kyo, which he formed.

Satoh has also performed in a lute duo by the name of Ayumi, with his daughter Miki Satoh; they recorded a recital for Carpe Diem in 2010.

In 1973, he became a professor at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, Holland, a position he held until 2004. He has also taught numerous master classes in Italy (Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena), Germany, the USA, Canada and Japan. As a teacher of the baroque lute, he has advocated the use of gut strings with no metal admixtures, and of historically accurate performance techniques. His 1987 book, ‘Method for the Baroque Lute' (Munich: Tree Editions) is widely used.

He has been actively composing, and performing and recording his compositions since 1981. In 2000 he became the president of LGS-Japan (Lute & Early Guitar Society of Japan) and LGS-Europe.

Miki Satoh:

Miki Satoh was born in 1989 in Voorburg, Holland. She started Lute-playing at the age of 9 and has since studied privately with her father, Toyohiko Satoh.

In 2002, she moved to Japan with her family and in December 2003, she played her first public concert in Japan with her parents. In January 2007, she had her debut recital on renaissance lute and in September 2007, she played the first of a series of duo concerts with her father on baroque lutes.

Besides playing lute, Miki is studying chemical science and engineering at Ariake National College of Technology, Japan, and devotes much of her time to traditional Japanese dance and archery.

She is a master of kyudo (Japanese archery), holding the third Dan.

I hope and trust my friend Reinhard will read this and DL the Master Quality FLAC for our next meeting:-)))