Biography
Mari Kato was born in Obihiro on Japan's northern island of Hokkaido and studied at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz in Cologne with Tiny Wirtz and at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media with David Wilde.
She attended master classes with Paul Badura-Skoda and Sergei Dorenski.
Mari Kato won 1st prizes at the “Beethoven Piano Competition” in Sapporo (1987) and at the “International Piano Competition” Lugano (1991).
As a soloist, Mari Kato has performed with the North Chamber Orchestra Sapporo and the Sapporo Symphony Orchestra under Tadaaki Otaka and has worked with conductors such as Lorin Maazel, Hubert Soudant, Johannes Kalitzke and Joji Hattori.
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Mari Kato is a regular guest at international music festivals in Europe and Japan and has performed with Benjamin Schmid, Erich Höbarth, Veronika Hagen, Thomas Riebl, Vladimir Mendelssohn, Martin Rummel, Julius Berger, Christoph Richter, Christine Hoock, Karl Leister and the Amati Ensemble, among others.
Numerous CD productions document her musical and chamber music range for Naxos, Paladino Music, Uni Mozarteum and Nomos.
From 1995 to 2000, Mari Kato was a lecturer for accompaniment at the Folkwang University in Essen and has been a contract teacher at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg since 2000.