Around the Music Festival

The Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra has announced that Junichi Hirokami will be its sixth music director. The music director position had been vacant since the end of the 2021/2022 season, when the previous music director, Jun Märkl, stepped down after one year in the position.

Hirokami has appeared with the orchestra since his first guest appearance in 2000, and has also appeared in 2019, 2023 and 2024. His term of office will be three years from January 2025. At the inauguration concert scheduled for February 8, 2025, he will conduct Dvorak’s Cello Concerto and Symphony No. 9 “From the New World”.

Hirokami is 66 years old and was born in Tokyo. After graduating from the Tokyo College of Music, he won the first Kirill Kondrashin International Competition for Young Conductors in 1984. After that, he has held positions such as Principal Conductor of the Norrkoping Symphony Orchestra in Sweden (1991-1995), Permanent Conductor of the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra (1991-2000), and Music Director of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra in the United States (2006-2008).

In 2008, he was appointed as the permanent conductor of the Kyoto Symphony Orchestra. At the time of his retirement in 2022, he was also serving as artistic advisor. Since March 2022, he has been serving as the artistic leader of the Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa.

PHOTO：Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra