Around the Music Festival

The Tokyo Symphony Orchestra has announced the appointment of Swiss conductor Lorenzo Viotti as its next Music Director, succeeding Jonathan Nott, who has held the position since 2014 and will retire after the 2025/2026 season. Viotti, the orchestra’s fourth music director, will serve a three-year term beginning with the 2026/2027 season.

Viotti was born in Lausanne, Switzerland, at the age of 34. His father was conductor Marcello Viotti, who died suddenly at the age of 50 after serving as music director of the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Italy, and his sister is Marina, a mezzo-soprano singer. She sang “ça ira” (sung during the French Revolution) with the heavy metal band GOJIRA at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics on July 26.

Since the 2021/2022 season, he has been Chief Conductor of the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, which is in the pit of the Dutch National Opera, and will retire at the end of the 2024/2025 season. He has already made numerous guest appearances with world-class orchestras, and this past June he was asked to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra on its tour of Germany, Switzerland, and Spain.

He made his first appearance with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra in July 2014 at the Tokyo Opera City Series as a substitute for Krzysztof Urbanski. This was not only his debut in Japan, but also his professional orchestral debut, and he has performed with the orchestra five times since then, in 2016, 2019, and 2023.

PHOTO：Tiago Miranda


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