Kyoto-born maestro Yutaka Sado is considered to be one of the foremost Japanese conductors of our time. Since beginning of the season 2015/16 he is music director of the Tonkünstler-Orchester.

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.

Since 2005 Yutaka Sado is the Artistic Director of the Hyogo Performing Arts Center (HPAC) and of the HPAC's resident orchestra. HPAC has now established itself as Japan’s leading cultural institution with more than 70,000 subscribers. Sado's degree of popularity in Japan is tremendous, especially due to his appearance as conductor and main host in a weekly TV program, in which he brings Japanese music lovers deeper insights into the world of classical music.

Representations: Germany, Austria and Benelux, further countries upon request

Yutaka Sado is one of the most important Japanese conductors of our time. Since the season 2015-16 he is Chief Conductor of the Tonkünstler-Orchester in Austria, where his contract has been extended already until including the season 2024-25.

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 Jerusalem International Music 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 the weekly TV program «Untitled Concert» that he presented from 2008 to 2015 and in which he brought the world of classical music closer to Japanese music enthusiasts. For almost 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 directed by the Mainichi Broadcasting System (MBS), a major Japanese radio and television station. Yutaka Sado also regularly tours with his Super Kids Orchestra, founded in Hyogo in 2003, which promotes the most talented lower and middle 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, which has been in existence since 1990.

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.

As part of his extensive concert engagements with the Tonkünstler-Orchester, he has toured Japan, England and – most recently - Germany with concerts at the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, the Dresdener Kulturpalast and the Essen Philharmonie.

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 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 in January 2018, 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 Symphonies Nos. 4-6, Bruckner’s Symphonies No. 4 and 9, Sibelius’ Symphony No. 2 and «Finlandia», Haydn’s «Schöpfung» and Bernstein’s orchestral works.

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