Around the Music Festival

The final round of the 18th “Tokyo International Music Competition” Conducting Division was held at Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall on 14th, Japan’s Nodoka Okisawa won. Second place is Kanade Yokoyama in Japan, Masaru Kumakura in third place. Fourth place is Earl Lee who lives in Canada. “Hideo Saito Award” was presented to Okizawa, “audience award” to Yokoyama.

“Tokyo International Music Competition” was founded in 1967 by Min-On Concert Association. It aims to discover and cultivate widely competent musicians, to promote and develop music cultural exchange with countries all over the world. At the time of establishment, there were three divisions of Conducting, Singing, and chamber music, but now the Conducting division is held once every three years. In the 18th session, 238 people from 42 countries-regions submitted applications, 18 subjects proceeded to the 1st preliminary round after document and video review.

This time the chairperson of the judge is Yuzo Toyama, conductor. Judges include conductor such as Junichi Hirokami, Alexandre Razarev, Tadaaki Otaka, Hubert Soudant, Ken Takaseki, former concert master of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Werner Hink, violinist Dong Suk Kang, former secretary general of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra Peter Pastreich is joining.

The final round was contested by four people, and the contestants conducted orchestral music with the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra. Okizawa who won the championship was born in 1987. After graduating from the Conducting department at Tokyo University of the Arts, she completed Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin. Last year she participated in the master class of the Royal Concertgebou Orchestra.

Photo：Tokyo International Music Competition for Conducting

［Reference article］Interview to Mr. Hisao Kondo, Chairperson of the Organising Committee and the Executive Managing Director of the Min-On Concert Association（English）


　　　　Click here for details　▷