Pianist ZEYDA RUGA SUZUKI received her musical education in her native Cuba, at Havana’s Municipal Conservatory of Music, finishing her eight-year course at age 12 under the tutelage of Professor Sarah González. She then continued studying privately with Professor Ñola Sahig, a former student of Mesdames Isabelle Vengerova and Rosina Lhevinne. At age 16, Miss Ruga came to the United States to study at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music, where she was a pupil of Rudolf Serkin and Eleanor Sokoloff. After receiving her Artist Diploma at Curtis, she earned her doctorate from Québec’s Laval University, where she served as Associate Professor and Department Head of Chamber Music. She has also served as Visiting Professor of Piano at Indiana University. As a juror, she served at the prestigious Fischoff Chamber Music Competition in May 2010 for the fourth time. She has also served as a juror twice for the American Pianists Association. Composers James Aikman, Jon Deak, Hsueh-Yung Shen, and Takaoki Sugitani have dedicated several works to her.
Ms. Ruga Suzuki has enjoyed a global career touring from Alaska to Florida and from Maine to California in the U.S. and throughout Canada, Europe, and Asia, including 41 concert tours of Japan and one of India. She has been a soloist internationally with symphony orchestras that include Tokyo, Sapporo, Hong Kong, Québec, Indianapolis, Havana, and Grand Teton Music Festival under the batons of Pierre Dervaux, Raymond Leppard, Hidetaro Suzuki, Kirk Trevor, Ling Tung, and David Wiley. Her performances have been acclaimed by major American, Canadian, and Japanese publications that include the NY Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Asahi Shimbun, the Montreal Star, and “Strad” and “Ongaku no Tomo” music magazines.
Participation as artist-in-residence in major music festivals includes Stratford (Canada), Bay Chamber Concerts (Maine), Mainly Mozart (San Diego), Music in the Mountains (Colorado), Grand Teton (Wyoming) and Serenata of Santa Fe. Often a guest of Chicago’s Rembrandt Chamber Players and the Miami String Quartet, she has also offered Master Classes at Miami’s New World Symphony and the European Piano Teachers Association in Blonay, Switzerland.
A dedicated chamber musician, she co-founded with her husband, violinist, violist, and conductor Hidetaro Suzuki, the chamber music series “Suzuki & Friends” (1980-2007) in Indianapolis. The series was so successful that the City of Indianapolis proclaimed a “Suzuki & Friends Day”, and Conner Prairie Living History Museum conveyed its highest honor on both Mr. and Mrs. Suzuki, The Spirit of the Prairie Award, which celebrates America’s Trailblazers for their achievement, courage, innovation and vision. The Suzukis played their first public recital in January 1961 and have continuously enjoyed a “magnificent partnership” throughout the world for 50 years. Illustrious chamber music partners that appeared with Mrs. Suzuki in her series include pianists Ruth Laredo, Anton Kuerti, Monique Duphil, and Anne Epperson, violinists Andrés Cárdenes and Jaime Laredo, cellists Colin Carr, Sharon Robinson, Sara Sant’Ambrogio, and Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi, clarinetist Larry Combs, flutist Carol Wincenc, French Horns Philip Myers and Gail Williams, and singers Suzanne Mentzer, Jennifer Larmore and Christine Brandes.
Recent performances include soloing with the Roanoke Symphony, playing chamber music with members of the Orion and Mendelssohn String Quartets at the Eastern Shore Chamber Music Festival in Maryland, and performing at the Mansion at Strathmore, Concerts at the Alden, and the Sumner Museum in the D.C. area. She is a member of the Northern Virginia Music Teachers Association and maintains a private studio in McLean.
In 2008, the Suzukis co-founded the chamber music group PRO MUSICA WASHINGTON, which prompted the Washington Post to write: “unabashed and intense in emotions…it’s worth keeping an ear for their next performance… Zeyda Ruga Suzuki created a tapestry of vibrant colors upon which Hidetaro Suzuki could generate dimensions of velvety and silky melodic textures…”
