Yutaka Sado

Yutaka Sado has just been appointed as the fifth Music Director of the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra: the four-year term will start in April 2023 until March 2027, and prior to that, he will be involved in concert programming for the orchestra as the Music Adviser for one year from April 2022. Maestro Sado will appear during the celebration of 50th anniversary of the New Japan Philharmonic including “Doors of Sumida Classic” in January 2022 and in the “Triphony Hall & Suntory Hall Series” in May 2022.

Since 2015 Yutaka Sado also serves as Music and Artistic Director of the Tonkünstler-Orchester, one of the historical Viennese orchestras; his contract has been recently extended until 2025. Since 2005 Yutaka Sado is the Artistic Director of the Hyogo Performing Arts Center (HPAC), Japan and of the HPAC's resident orchestra. He has also been Principal Guest Conductor of the Filarmonica Teatro Regio Torino in Italy. For almost 20 years he served as Principal Conductor of the Orchestre Lamoureux in Paris.

The long-time assistant of Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa was awarded the most important conductor's prizes, e.g. the Premier Grand Prix at the 39th International Conducting Competition in Besançon and the Grand Prix du Concours International L. Bernstein Jerusalem. Sado's strong ties to Leonard Bernstein led him to Bernstein's Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo as 'conductor in residence'. Critics have unanimously hailed Yutaka Sado as one of the most enthralling and charismatic conductors of the new generation.　He has conducted most of the major orchestras in the world, including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Bavarian State Orchestra, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Dresden in Germany, the Orchestre de Paris and the Orchestre National de France, the Santa Cecilia Orchestra in Italy, the National Symphony Orchestra in US and in the UK the London Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic and the BBC Philharmonic.

As opera conductor he has experienced strong relationship with the Teatro Regio Torino in Italy and with most of the French national opera houses and with the Festival Lyrique in Aix-en-Provence.

As Artistic Director of the Hyogo Performing Arts Center (HPAC) and of the HPAC's resident orchestra, he has made the concert hall one of the most important in Japan with approximately 70.000 subscribers. Sado's degree of popularity in Japan is tremendous, especially due to his appearance as conductor and main host in the "Untitled Concert", the weekly TV program which was honored "the longest running TV program for classical music" by the Guinness World Records.

Yutaka Sado has a solid recording activity, that includes recordings with major orchestras as the DSO Berlin in Germany, the RAI Orchestra in Italy, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in Switzerland, the BBC Philharmonic in UK as well as the Orchestre Lamoureux and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. He has also recorded opera arias with Karita Mattila and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.