Born in Tokyo in 1999, Mone Hattori came from a musical family. After studies in Japan with Auguri Suzuki and Yasuko Ohtani she made her...

Born in Tokyo in 1999, Mone Hattori came from a musical family. After studies in Japan with Auguri Suzuki and Yasuko Ohtani she made her concerto debut aged eight, and enrolled in Zakhar Bron's prestigious Academy in Interlaken, Switzerland. At age 10, Hattori became the youngest ever winner of the Karol Lipinski/Henryk Wieniawski Competition. Her debut recording featuring Franz Waxman's virtuoso showpiece Carmen-Fantasie is technically brilliant as well as being a rarity on record. The work is part of Waxman's score to the 1946 movie Humoresque which received an Academy Award. It was initially meant to be played by Jascha Heifetz but he was replaced by Isaac Stern for the film soundtrack. After seeing the film, Heifetz asked Waxman to expand the work and it was premiered on September 1946. Shostakovich's magnificent Violin Concerto No. 1 completes the album, with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester under conductor Alan Buribayev. The album was released in Japan earlier, and received enthusiastic reviews: "I was reminded of the debut of Hilary Hahn... her outstanding talent really comes across clearly... listening to her play Shostakovich's great cadenza, I'm sure I am not the only one who felt a shiver run down their spine." (Stereo Review)