Biography

Born in Kyoto, Japan, Shizuko Noiri graduated in musicology from the Doshisha women’s college in Kyoto. She began studying the lute with Ichiro Okamoto. She later moved to Switzerland, where she continued her studies at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, specialising in the lute and Renaissance and Baroque performing practices under Eugen Dombois and Hopkinson Smith. She obtained her solo diploma in 1991.

Performing under René Jacobs, Shizuko Noiri has over the last 20 years appeared in many opera productions, including at the Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik (Austria), Festival International d’Art Lyrique d’Aix-en-Provence (France), Théatre des Champs-Elysées (Paris), Théatre Royal de La Monnaie (Brussels), Staatsoper (Berlin), Lincoln Center (New York), Barbican Centre (London), Theater an der Wien (Austria), Cité de la musique (Paris), Palais des Beaux-Arts (Brussels), Salzburger Festspiele (Austria), Teatro Avenida (Buenos Aires, under the direction of J.M. Quintana), Festival La Folle Journée (Tokyo, under Michel Corboz) and Tokyo Opera City (under Masaaki Suzuki).

Shizuko Noiri is a founding member of “Les Plasirs du Parnasse”, and gives frequent solo performances with the finest Baroque ensembles and musicians around the world, including Anner Bylsma, Concerto Vocale, I Musici, Freiburger Baroque Orchestra, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Ensemble 415, Concerto Köln and Bach Collegium Japan.

She has performed in the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Philharmonie & Konzerthaus (Berlin), The Royal Chapel (Versailles), Freunde alter Musik Basel (Switzerland), Gewandhaus (Leipzig), Sydney Opera House (Australia), Rubin Academy ( Israel), Palau de la Musica (Barcelona), Palacio Real (Madrid), Bolshoi Theater ( Moscow) and numerous Festivals such as Beaune and Ambronay (France), Urbino ( Italy), Bruges (Belgium), and Prague Spring (Czech Republic).

Shizuko Noir has given masterclasses in Aix-en Provence, the Czech Republic, and at Tokyo’s University of the Arts.

Her discography includes the solo recordings G. A. Cateliono, Intabolatura de Leuto and Giovanni Zamboni and Sonate d’ intavolatura di Leuto under the Regulus label, and other recordings with I Musici (Philips), René Jacobs (Harmonia Mundi France). Additional labels include WDR, Symphonia and Zig-Zag.