Yasushi AKUTAGAWA      Triptyque for String orchestra

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P.I.TCHAIKOVSKY      Piano Concerto No. 1

Kyohei Sorita, Piano

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P.I. TCHAIKOVSKY      Symphony No. 5

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NEW JAPAN PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

The New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra was founded in 1972 by the conductors Seiji Ozawa and Naozumi Yamamoto as an orchestra operated independently by the musicians. In 1975 Kazuhiro Koizumi was appointed as the first music director, and in 1983, Michiyoshi Inoue was appointed as the second music director. In 1997 it moved to Sumida Ward, a city of history and tradition, with the Sumida Triphony Hall, which opened in the same year, as the base for its activities. In 1999 Seiji Ozawa was appointed Conductor Laureate.

In 2004 Ozawa launched the New Japan Philharmonic World Dream Orchestra, with the musician Joe Hisaishi, and the Chamber Music Series, which was independently proposed by orchestra members. In collaboration with Hisaishi he conducted the orchestral music for the highly successful films Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle and Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea.

From 2003 to 2013 Christian Arming was music director, leading the orchestra in its participation in the Hadyn Project in 2009, the 200th anniversary of Haydn’s death. In 2011 the Beethoven Project was also a great success. Daniel Harding joined as lead guest conductor from 2010 and conducted a charity concert in aid of victims of the 2011 earthquake in Japan. This became the subject of a television documentary.

In 2013 Ingo Metzmacher joined Harding as the orchestra’s conductor in residence, conducting a programme of contemporary songs and the first act of Wagner’s Die Walküre.

In 2016 Toshiyuki Kamioka was appointed as music director and made a number of recordings with the orchestra including Mahler’s First, Third and Fifth Symphonies and the Verdi Requiem.

The conductor Yutaka Sado became the orchestra’s fifth music director in April 2023.

YUTAKA SADO

Born in Kyoto, Yutaka Sado is currently music director of the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, the Tonkünstler Orchestra in Austria, artistic director of the Hyogo Performing Arts Centre and its resident orchestra in Nishinomiya, and principal conductor of the Siena Wind Orchestra in Tokyo.

He studied with Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa and won the Grand Prix of the Besançon International Competition for Young Conductors in 1989, and the Grand Prix of the Leonard Bernstein Jerusalem International Music Competition in 1995. Sado's collaboration with Leonard Bernstein continued and in 1990 he was appointed as conductor in residence at the Pacific Music Festival (inaugurated by the late Bernstein) in Sapporo, Japan.

Sado’s career outside Japan started in France, where he was principal conductor of the Orchestre Lamoureux in Paris between 1993 and 2010. Sado has guested with many of the world’s leading ensembles including the Berlin Philharmonic, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Bayerisches Staatsorchester, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Staatskapelle Dresden, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, Orchestre de la Suisse-Romande, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National de France, Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, RAI Torino and National Symphony Orchestra in Washington DC.

Sado’s musical achievements have been documented in more than 50 audio and visual recordings. Tonkünstler Orchestra Label has released over 15 CDs, in-house studio productions and live recordings from the Vienna Musikverein, including Ein Heldenleben and the Rosenkavalier-Suite by Richard Strauss, Bruckner’s Fourth, Eighth and Ninth Symphonies, Haydn’s The Creation, and orchestral works by Leonard Bernstein.

KYOHEI SORITA

In 2012 the pianist Kyohei Sorita became known to a wider audience overnight when he won the first prize, the audience prize and three other prizes at the 81st Japan Music Competition. He subsequently studied at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory and then at the Chopin University of Music in Warsaw. In addition to invitations to St Petersburg, where he made his debuts with a solo recital and with the Maryinsky Orchestra as part of the Russian International Music Festival, his debut recital at the Suntory Hall in Tokyo followed with great success in 2016. Since then his many appearances have included orchestra collaborations with the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Tonkünstler-Orchester, RAI National Symphony Orchestra,  Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Yomiuri Japan Symphony Orchestra and the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of such conductors as Robin Ticciati, Sebastian Weigle, Yutaka Sado, Andrea Battistoni, Andrey Boreyko and Mikhail Pletnev.He has become one of the most sought-after pianists on the Japanese concert scene, and is the founder, producer and conductor of the Japanese National Orchestra. In 2019 he launched his own recording label. Sorita also hosts a music salon, Solistiade, a platform that connects young musicians and music lovers. In 2021 he won the silver medal at the Chopin Competition in Warsaw and recorded Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto with the Tonkünstler Orchestra conducted by Yutaka Sado.

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