Yutaka Sado will remain Music Director of the Tonkünstler Orchestra until 2025. At the annual Tonkünstler Orchestra press conference in Vienna on Wednesday 20 March, Yutaka Sado signed his new contract. The term lasts until the end of the 24-25 concert season. «I’m delighted and I’d like to thank all the members and staff of the orchestra for the trust they’ve placed in me – but especially the musicians who steadfastly believe in our collaboration and want to continue our musical journey together» said Yutaka Sado. After the major success of the «Cosmos Bernstein» concert season to mark the centenary of his former teacher and mentor Leonard Bernstein, Yutaka Sado said he would finish the complete recording of Bernstein’s symphonies and work even more intensively with the orchestra on the music of Benjamin Britten and the symphonic works of Gustav Mahler.

Yutaka Sado joined the Tonkünstler Orchestra as Music Director in summer 2015 and since then has conducted the orchestra in almost 150 concerts in the Musikverein Wien, Festspielhaus St. Pölten and Grafenegg, as well as on five tours to Japan, Britain and Germany and guest appearances in Baden and Wiener Neustadt. In the coming season, Yutaka Sado will conduct works including the Eighth Symphony by Anton Bruckner and the Requiem by Giuseppe Verdi. The Tonkünstler will present Sergei Prokofiev’s ballet suite «Romeo and Juliet» in a compilation by Sado himself. Sado will also conduct the world premiere of Bernd Richard Deutsch’s Cello Concerto. To mark the 250th Beethoven anniversary year, Yutaka Sado will conduct the fourth edition of the participation-based choir project Seid umschlungen, Millionen (You millions, I embrace you) with 500 singers in the Wiener Musikverein.