Profile (English)

RIKA FUKUDA (JAPAN)

WPTA Japan, President  http://wpta.jp/

Japanese pianist Rika Fukuda has gained her Postgraduate Diploma in Performance from the Royal College of Music, London (UK) and she currently organises music festivals and piano competitions in Japan as a President of the World Piano Teachers Association JAPAN. 

Rika started her piano lessons at age 5. Making big progress in music in her early days, she studied solfege with Norio Fukushi who is one of the most famous composers in Japan, having studied with Olivier Messiaen in the Conservatoire de Paris. She won the Fukui Naoaki commemorative Scholarship, which is for outstanding students in the Musashino Academia Musicae in Tokyo, and obtained a Bachelor’s degree in music there. In addition, she gained a Bachelor’s degree in the liberal arts from the Open University of Japan. Having won the prestigious ‘Gunma Artist Award for Studying Abroad’ from her local government, she studied with K U Schnabel in Italy. Later, she achieved a high score in the ABRSM Exams. And the examiner, Mrs Eileen Field, offered her the chance to study in the UK. Rika was awarded an RCM Scholarship to enrol at the Royal College of Music, London,https://www.rcm.ac.uk/ where she studied piano with Gordon Fergus-Thompson, and studied fortepiano with David Ward as her supplementary study. In 2001, she gained her Postgraduate Diploma in Performance with the Amadeus Fortepiano Prize.

Performing career – After completion of her study, she became very active, working for the “YAMAHA Master Class” in Tokyo, a special course for very young, talented students. She has also cultivated a busy international performing career, performing piano solo and chamber music across Italy, Germany, Serbia and Taiwan. Since her first visit to Serbia in 2013, she has been promoting Serbian music and has often appeared in the Serbian Embassy, Tokyo. In recent years, Rika was honoured to appear at concerts such as the JapanSerbia 135 years’ Friendship Anniversary event in Serbian Embassy of Tokyo, Setagaya Museum Promenade Concert by the Setagaya Arts Foundation, and Evgenija Jeremic Soprano Recital organized by Fujimi City which is the sister city of Šabac City in Serbia. In June 2020 she was appointed the Art project by Tokyo Prefecture, and will have a new video coming soon.

As an organizer – Since 2008, Rika has been organizing numerous musical events in order to support young musicians, including the Y150 Piano Competition & Festival authorized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. The prize winners have gone on to great achievements, for example, Mr. Tomohiro Ushida won the 2ndprize in the 10th Hamamatsu International Piano Competition, and Mr. Jun Kaneko became a teaching staff member in the Musashino Academia Musicae which he graduated from himself. Since her appointment as a President of the World Piano Teachers Association JAPAN in 2018, she has organized the WPTA Concert Series including Serbian Music Festival (venue: Serbian Embassy, Tokyo) and the WPTA Piano Auditions in Japan, with contestants from all over Japan. As the WPTA JAPAN offers an international opportunity for piano contestants, Rika would like to collaborate with other organizers of international music festivals and piano competitions.