Kazuki Yamada / conductor
“His gesticulation is already imbued with an incredibly wide range of meaning, from karate strikes to the fleetness of a ballet dancer. He displays the elegance of Chailly combined with the joviality of Kleiber”. Le Temps FJ 2011
The young Japanese Genius Kazuki Yamada was born in Kanazawa in 1979. He has studied conducting at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts & Music and at the Mozarteum Summer Academy in Salzburg in 2002, where he was chosen best student. During his university studies Yamada founded the Yokohama Sinfonietta with which he has made his conducting debut and which he continues to conduct today. At the age of 22 Yamada conducted the complete cycle of Beethoven’s symhonies. He also conducted the complete symphonic works of Schumann, Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Borodin.
An admirer of choral music, he was employed in 2005 as the director of the Tokyo Philharmonic Chorus, with which he has recorded four albums (Fontec Inc.). He won the Grand Prix and the Audience Award in the 51st Competition in Besançon in 2009. In March of 2010 he achieved a dazzling success – before a concert of the Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa, he stepped in without any preparation to replace Seiji Ozawa and became a music partner of the orchestra. On Ozawa’s recommendation he made his debut with the Saito-Kinen Orchestra. In June of 2010 he conducted an exceptional concert with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, after which he received an invitation to become the orchestra’s principal conductor in the 2012–2013 season. Having made his name in conducting Japanese orchestras (he is the director of the NHK Symphony Orchestra), starting this season Kazuki Yamada will conquer the great European orchestras, starting with the BBC Symphony Orchestra of London, the Orchestre de Paris and the Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin.
AC
