Susanna Ogata

American violinist Susanna Ogata was raised in Des Moines, Iowa, and she took up the violin at age five. She was a student at the Eastman School of Music, where she became a teaching assistant for Charles Castleman, and acquired an interest in historically informed performance practices from her studies with Malcom Bilson and Paul O’Dette. Ogata earned her bachelor's and master's degrees at Eastman, and went on to study at the Longy School of Music of Bard College, where she worked with violinist Laura Bossert and Baroque violinist Dana Maiben. Ogata has performed with the Arcadia Players, the Boston Baroque, the Newton Baroque, and other early music ensembles. She also participated in the Boston Early Music Festival, the Connecticut Early Music Festival, and the Blue Hill Bach Festival, as well as performing for the Cambridge Society for Early Music, and she held a residency at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Active in chamber music, Ogata was a founding member of the Boston Classical Trio, the Copley String Quartet, and the Coriolan String Quartet. In 2014, Ogata became the assistant concert master of the Handel and Haydn Society, and she has performed as a soloist with the Bach Ensemble, the Eastman Musica Nova Ensemble, and the Boston Virtuosi, among many other groups. She has recorded Beethoven's sonatas for fortepiano and violin with Ian Watson on Coro. ~ Blair Sanderson