The Japanese violinist Yoko Sato has died. There is shockingly little documentation of her artistry available in the West, in terms of video and recordings, especially on CD, although she did make an album with Ennio Morricone, the soundtrack to “Dedicato al mare Egeo.” (All that’s posted on YouTube is a horrible disco cover, with no violin that I can perceive.) However, there is a great video that’s been circulating of her playing Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto at the age of 13, with the composer conducting.

Here, she appears at the Tchaikovsky Competition in 1966 (around the 3-minute mark), with some footage of her teacher, Leonid Kogan.

Wouldn’t mind hearing this album, in which Sato plays the rarely-heard concerto by Tikhon Khrennikov, who caused so much suffering for Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and others – including Khachaturian – as General Secretary of the Union of Soviet Composers.

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/feb99/violin.htm

Oh, this is very interesting. Apparently “Dedicato al mare Egeo” is a quasi-skin flick, directed by Masuo Ikeda, the painter, printmaker, sculptor, and novelist (and Akutagawa Prize winner for his novel “Offering in the Aegean,” upon which the film is presumably based), who was Sato’s partner from 1980.

https://letterboxd.com/film/dedicato-al-mare-egeo/

Sato was 72 years-old. Ikeda died in 1997 at the age of 63.

Her obituaries have been succinct. None of them mention the movie.

Renowned Japanese Violinist Yoko Sato Dies at 72

R.I.P.

PHOTO: Sato as soloist, with a well-decorated Khachaturian on the podium, in 1965