Yutaka Sado

Born in Kyoto, Yutaka Sado is currently Music Director of the Tonkünstler Orchestra in Austria, Artistic Director of the Hyogo Performing Arts Center and its resident orchestra, and Principal Conductor of the Siena Wind Orchestra in Tokyo.

In addition, the Tokyo-based New Japan Philharmonic has named Yutaka Sado as its Music Director starting from April 2023.

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.

Maestro Sado 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.