Mitsuko Uchida

Mitsuko Uchida (内田光子, Uchida Mitsuko; Atami, 20 December 1948) is a British-naturalized Japanese pianist. She lives in London.

Uchida was born in Atami (Shizuoka Prefecture), a coastal city near Tokyo. She moved to Vienna at the age of twelve. Her parents were diplomats. She enrolled at the Mozarteum in Salzburg to study with Wilhelm Kempff and Stefan Askenase.

In 1968 she participated in the Koningin Elisabethwedstrijd in Brussels, where she had to be content with a tenth prize. The following year, however, she won first prize at the Internationale Beethovenwedstrijd in Vienna and in 1970 the second prize at the Internationaal Frederick Chopin Piano Concours. In 1975 she subsequently also won the second prize at the Leeds International Piano Competition.

She is a celebrated interpreter of the works of Mozart, Schumann, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Debussy and Schoenberg. She has recorded all of Mozart's piano sonatas and piano concertos in the 1980s, together with the English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Jeffrey Tate.

In 2009 she began re-recording Mozart's piano concertos, now with the Cleveland Orchestra and conducting from the piano herself. In 2016 the release of the fifth CD in this cycle is scheduled.

She is artistic director of the Marlboro Music School and Festival, alongside her fellow pianist Richard Goode.