The is a Japanese symphony

orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...

administratively based in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

. The orchestra primarily performs concerts in Tokyo at the

Suntory Hall The is a concert venue in the central Akasaka district of Tokyo, Japan. Part of the Ark Hills complex, it consists of a main concert hall, widely considered one of the finest in the world for its acoustics — indeed Herbert von Karajan called i ...

, but also gives concerts at the Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall. The orchestra also performs in

Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of To ...

at the Yokohama Minato Mirai Hall.

History

The orchestra was founded in 1962 by the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper group, the

Nippon Television Network Corporation JOAX-DTV (channel 4), branded as , is the flagship station of the Nippon News Network and the Nippon Television Network System, owned-and-operated by the which is a subsidiary of the certified broadcasting holding company , itself a listed sub ...

, and the

Yomiuri Telecasting Corporation JOIX-DTV (channel 10), branded as , is the Kansai region flagship station of the Nippon News Network and the Nippon Television Network System, owned by the subsidiary of the eponymous Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings, Japan's largest media conglomera ...

. Its first principal conductor was the American conductor Willis Page, who served while on leave from the

Nashville Symphony Orchestra The Nashville Symphony is an American symphony orchestra, based in Nashville, Tennessee. The orchestra is resident at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center. History In 1920, prior to the 1946 founding of the Nashville Symphony, a group of amateur and ...

Hiroshi Wakasugi was a Japanese orchestra conductor. He premiered many of the major Western operas in Japan, and was honoured with many awards for cultural achievement. He was best known for conducting works by German composers such as Richard Wagner, Anton Br ...

became the orchestra's first Japanese principal conductor in 1965.

Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos (born Rafael Frühbeck; 15 September 1933 – 11 June 2014) was a Spanish conductor and composer. Frühbeck was born in Burgos, Spain to a family of German ancestry. He first took up conducting while on military serv ...

, the orchestra's fourth principal conductor from 1980 to 1983, held the title of principal guest conductor with the orchestra from 1983 to 1990, and was named one of the orchestra's honorary conductors in 1990. Other conductors with the title of honorary conductor include

Kurt Masur Kurt Masur (18 July 1927 – 19 December 2015) was a German conductor. Called "one of the last old-style maestros", he directed many of the principal orchestras of his era. He had a long career as the Kapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Or ...

, since 1979, and

Gennady Rozhdestvensky Gennady Nikolayevich Rozhdestvensky, CBE (russian: Генна́дий Никола́евич Рожде́ственский; 4 May 1931 – 16 June 2018) was a Soviet and Russian conductor. Biography Gennady Rozhdestvensky was born in Moscow. H ...

, since 1990.

Tadaaki Otaka is a Japanese conductor. Biography Otaka studied composition, theory, and French horn, at the Toho Gakuen School of Music. He was subsequently a conducting student of Hideo Saito. Otaka has served as conductor of the Tokyo Philharmonic Orches ...

, the orchestra's sixth principal conductor from 1992 to 1998, now has the title of honorary guest conductor.

Sylvain Cambreling Sylvain Cambreling (born 2 July 1948 in Amiens, France) is a French conductor. Biography Trained as a trombone player, Cambreling studied at the Paris Conservatoire. He joined l' Orchestre Symphonique de Lyon (OSL) as a trombonist in 1971. In 19 ...

was principal conductor from April 2010 through March 2019. Cambreling now has the title of conductor laureate with the orchestra. In August 2016,

Sebastian Weigle Sebastian Weigle (born 1961, in East Berlin) is a German conductor and horn player. He is currently ''Generalmusikdirektor'' of the Oper Frankfurt and principal conductor of the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra. Biography Weigle is a nephew of ...

first guest-conducted the orchestra. He returned for a further guest-conducting engagement in July 2017. In May 2018, the orchestra announced the appointment of Weigle as its next chief conductor, effective 1 April 2019, with an initial contract of three years. In 1978, they recorded a new arrangement of the music of

Hato no kyūjitsu was a one-minute-long station identification video that aired on Nippon Television in Japan when the station signs on in the morning and signs off at night. History The program began broadcasting on August 28, 1953 in black and white and then wh ...

for Nippon TV’s 25th anniversary.

Principal conductors (partial list)

* Willis Page (1962–1963) * Otto Matzerath (1963) *

(1965–1975) *

(1980–1983) *

Heinz Rögner Heinz Rögner (16 January 1929 – 10 December 2001) was a German conductor. He was born in Leipzig. Rögner was a student of Hugo Steurer (piano), Egon Bölsche (conducting) and Otto Gutschlicht (viola). From 1947 to 1951, he was a repetite ...

(1984–1990) *

(1992–1998) *

Gerd Albrecht Gerd Albrecht (19 July 1935 – 2 February 2014) was a German conductor. Biography Albrecht was born in Essen, the son of the musicologist Hans Albrecht (1902–1961). He studied music in Kiel and in Hamburg, where his teachers included Wilhel ...

(1998–2007) *

Stanisław Skrowaczewski Stanislaw Pawel Stefan Jan Sebastian Skrowaczewski (; October 3, 1923 – February 21, 2017) was a Polish-American classical conductor and composer. Biography Skrowaczewski was born in Lwów, Second Polish Republic (now Lviv, Ukraine). His pa ...

(2007–2010) *

(2010–2019) *

(2019–present)

References

External links

Official Japanese-language homepage of the orchestra

Official English-language homepage of the orchestra
{{authority control Musical groups established in 1962 Japanese orchestras Musical groups from Tokyo 1962 establishments in Japan