Yutaka Sado is one of the most important Japanese conductors of our time. Since the 2015/26 season, he has been Chief Conductor of the Tonkünstler Orchestra in Austria and in addition, from 2023, Chief Conductor of the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, founded by Seiji Ozawa.

Be it the Berliner Philharmoniker, DSO Berlin, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Bayerisches Staatsorchester Munich, the Radio Symphony Orchestras of Munich (BR), Hamburg (NDR), Cologne (WDR), Vienna (ORF), Torino (RAI) and Copenhagen (Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra), Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Sächsische Staatskapelle, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, London Symphony and London Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestra di Santa Cecilia Roma, Verdi Symphony Orchestra Milan or Mahler Chamber Orchestra – the list of orchestras Yutaka Sado has conducted and will conduct again is impressive.

Sado, born in Kyoto, has been Artistic Director of the Hyogo Performing Arts Center (PAC) and Chief Conductor of the PAC Orchestra since 2005. With around 60,000 subscribers and over half-a-million visitors per year, this concert house and theatre has become one of Japan's leading artistic venues. Yutaka Sado's popularity in Japan is enormous, not least thanks to a weekly TV program, in which he brought the world of classical music closer to Japanese music enthusiasts.

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Yutaka Sado is one of the most important Japanese conductors of our time. Since the 2015/26 season, he has been Chief Conductor of the Tonkünstler Orchestra in Austria and in addition, from 2023, Music Director of the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, founded by Seiji Ozawa.

After several years of assisting Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa, Yutaka Sado won such prestigious conducting prizes as the Grand Prix of the 39th «Concours international de jeunes chefs d'orchestre» in Besançon, France in 1989, and in 1995 the Grand Prix of the «Leonard Bernstein Competition». His close ties with his mentor led to his appointment as Conductor in Residence at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, which had been founded by Bernstein. At the «Leonard Bernstein Memorial Concert» in the cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York in December 1990, Yutaka Sado conducted alongside other Bernstein protégés.

Sado, born in Kyoto, has been Artistic Director of the Hyogo Performing Arts Center (PAC) and Chief Conductor of the PAC Orchestra since 2005. With around 60,000 subscribers and over half-a-million visitors per year, this concert house and theatre has become one of Japan's leading artistic venues. Yutaka Sado's popularity in Japan is enormous, not least thanks to a weekly TV program, in which he brought the world of classical music closer to Japanese music enthusiasts. For more than 20 years now, he has been directing the annual performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with 10,000 choir singers at a stadium in Osaka. The very popular «Daiku», which in English means «The Ninth» is organized by the Mainichi Broadcasting System (MBS), a major Japanese radio and television station. Yutaka Sado also regularly tours with his Super Kids Orchestra, which promotes the most talented school children from all over Japan as part of an exemplary music education programme. Since 2003, he has also been Principal Conductor of the Siena Wind Orchestra, one of the few professional wind orchestras in the world.

Yutaka Sado's career outside Japan began in France, where he was Principal Conductor of the Orchestre Lamoureux in Paris from 1993 to 2010. For years, the charismatic orchestra leader has also been one of the favourite guest conductors of the Orchestre de Paris. In Turin he made his Italian opera debut in 2010 with «Peter Grimes» by Benjamin Britten in a production by Willy Decker. Since then he has been returning regularly to the Teatro Regio.

In the meantime Yutaka Sado has stood in front of numerous outstanding European orchestras. He has appeared with the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester and the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Bayerisches Staatsorchester in Munich and the radio symphony orchestras of the BR, NDR, SWR and WDR. Sado has conducted the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, the Staatskapelle Weimar, the Dresden and Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestras, as well as the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich. He has also appeared with the Residentie Orkest Den Haag, the Orchestre de la Suisse-Romande, the London Symphony and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic, the Orchestre de Paris, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Orchestre National de France. In Italy he conducted the Orchestra di Santa Cecilia Roma, the RAI Torino, the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi and the Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Florence. Sado conducted the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington as his debut in the USA.

Yutaka Sado’s many-faceted musical achievements have been documented in over 50 CDs and DVDs, and the Tonkünstler Orchestra have been successfully producing and releasing titles including «Ein Heldenleben» and the «Rosenkavalier» suite by Richard Strauss, Haydn’s «Schöpfung» and the Symphonies No. 4-8, Brahms' Symphonie No. 2, Mahler's Symphonies No. 1-7, Bruckner’s Symphonies No. 4, 8 and 9, Sibelius’ Symphony No. 2 and «Finlandia», as well as Bernstein’s orchestral works.

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