Born in Tokyo in 1983, Yu Kosuge has been giving recitals and performing with orchestras since the age of nine. In 1993, she moved to Europe to pursue studies with Karl-Heinz Kämmerling in Hannover and Salzburg and in recent years has received great support and inspiration from András Schiff.

With her superlative technique, sensitivity of touch (her pianissimo has been likened to ‘the moment when the tip of an angel's wing touches one's cheek’) and profound understanding of the music she plays, she has become one of the most noted young pianists in the world and is one of very few artists to establish a highly successful international career without winning a major competition.

Ms. Kosuge gives more than 40 concerts a year and appears at the most important venues in Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Munich, Vienna, Salzburg, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Zurich, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Tokyo, Washington and New York. Her Carnegie Hall debut recital in November 2005 met with outstanding success with critics praising her ‘acutely poetic sensibility’ and ‘wit, drama, and effulgent lyricism,’ Culturecatch, U.S.A. Highlights of recent seasons include her debut recital at the Salzburg Festival.

As well as regular performances in Asia with the Singapore Symphony and all the major Japanese orchestras, Ms. Kosuge has already worked with many of the leading European orchestras including the NDR Symphony Orchestra Hamburg, NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover, St. Peterburg Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre National de Montpellier and Radio Symphony Orchestra Finland, with conductors of the stature of Rudolf Barschai, Alexander Dmitriev, Gerd Albrecht, Lawrence Foster, Sakari Oramo, Yutaka Sado, Osmo Vänskä and Dennis Russell Davies. In April 2007, she played for the first time with Seiji Ozawa (Beethoven Concerto nº 2)

She is invited to festivals in Rheingau, Schleswig-Holstein, Bremen, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Passau, Braunschweig, Kissingen, at the Salzburger Festspiele, Mozartwoche Salzburg, Holland Music Festival, Piano Festival Lille, La Folle journéée in Nantes and La Roque d'Anthéron piano festival, France.

Yu Kosuge has already released eight CDs. Her disc featuring the Chopin Études, made when she was 16, was accorded a five-star rating by the leading German music criticism magazine. Fono Forum. Since 2003, Yu Kosuge has recorded exclusively on the SONY label. The results of this collaboration include, recordings of Liszt's 12 Études d'exécution transcendante (2003), Chopin Préludes (2005), and a live recital at Carnegie Hall. Very recently released was a recording devoted to Fantasies by various composers and a Schumann album is in the pipe line.

Known for her warm personality and humour, her first book Jõnetsu no Cadenza, recalling the path she took to a career in music as well as humorous incidents from her concert life, was published in Japan in September 2005.

Amongst numerous awards, she has received the 13th Nippon Steel Music Award 2002, the Washington Award 2004 in the USA and the New Generation Prize of the German Radio, the 8th Hotel Okura Music Award 2006, and the 17th Idemitsu Music Award 2007.