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Appearing

conductor / Junichi HIROKAMI＜Friendship Conductor＞

violin / Kyoko YONEMOTO

Song List

© Masaaki Tomitori

Junichi HIROKAMI＜Friendship Conductor＞（conductor）

Born in Tokyo, Junichi Hirokami studied piano, composition and music under Atsutada Otaka. Then studied conducting and graduated at Tokyo College of Music. Winner at the first Kondrashin International Conducting Competition in Amsterdam at the sage of 26 in 1984. Since 1990, Junichi Hirokami has appeared as guest conductor with major orchestras throughout the world including the Orchestre National de France, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, and Wiener Symphoniker. Apart from guest appearance he had served as Chief Conductor of Sweden's Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Chief Conductor of the Limburg Symphony Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Principal Conductor of Japan Philharmonic Orchestra and Music Director of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra. In recent years, he has been a guest conductor of orchestras which include the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, L'Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra of Moscow, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. In Japan he has conducted all the major orchestras including NHK Symphony Orchestra and the Saito Kinen Orchestra. He also received great acclaim for his appearance with the Mito Chamber Orchestra. He is prolific in opera as well, having led celebrated performances of "Un ballo in maschera" and "Rigoletto" at the the Sydney Opera House, and his most recent triumphs include "La Traviata" at the Fujiwara Opera, "Le Nozze di Figaro" and "Ainadamar" at the Nissay Theatre, and "La Traviata" and "Aida" at the New National Theatre. From 2008 to 2022 Hirokami has achieved a golden era in Kyoto as Chief Conductor as well as Music and Artistic Advisor of the Kyoto Symphony Orchestra for 14 years. In 2015 he received 46th prestigious Suntory Music Award with Kyoto Symphony Orchestra together. Currently he serves as Friend of JPO / Artistic Advisor at Japan Philharmonic Orchestra and Friendship Conductor at Sapporo Symphony Orchestra (from April 2022). Furthermore he will start his tenure as Artistic Leader at Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa from 2022/23 season. He serves as professor of conducting division at Tokyo College of Music.

© Hirotada Onaka

Kyoko YONEMOTO（violin）

Born in Fukuoka in 1984, she began playing the violin at the age of three and took her first violin lessons from Akira Kajita. After she moved to Tokyo, she continued her studies with Ryo Date and Akuri Suzuki. At the age of six she entered the Music School for Children at Toho Gakuen School of Music, and thereafter she was mentored by Yoshio Unno. In 1997, at the age of thirteen, she became the youngest prize winner ever at the Paganini Competition in Italy. She later won first prize at the Music Competition of Japan in 2001 and the Paganini Moscow International Competition in 2006. She is also a prize winner at the Long-Thibaud, Queen Elisabeth and Fritz Kreisler violin competitions. In 2009 she was invited to perform the Paganini Concerto No.1 and the Vieuxtemps Concerto No.4 in the big hall of the Moscow Conservatory, accompanied by the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra. The following year she returned to Moscow to perform the Vieuxtemps Concerto No.5 with Pinchas Zukerman in the Kremlin. She moved to Europe in 2003 and started studying with Gérard Poulet at the Conservatoire National de Région and at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris. In 2004 she began studying with Boris Belkin at the Maastricht Conservatorium in the Netherlands, where she completed her master’s degree. She also took part in the summer course at the Accademia Chigiana in Italy, and in 2012 she was invited to its winter series to perform all Brahms sonatas. In addition to regular appearances with most of major Japanese orchestras, she has also performed with international orchestras in Russia, the Netherlands, Italy, France, Belgium, Spain, and Taiwan, and collaborated with celebrated conductors such as Roberto Benzi, Myung-whun Chung, Gabriel Chmura, Yuri Bashmet, Eliahu Inbal, Hanns-Martin Schneidt, Günter Neuhold, Charles Olivieri-Munroe, Kazuhiro Koizumi, Kenichiro Kobayashi, and Junichi Hirokami. She is also a noted chamber musician. She has recently worked with artists such as Jean-Claude Vanden Eiden, Pascal Moragues, Yuzuko Horigome and David Cohen. She also enjoys her collaboration with cellist Ayano Kamimura and pianist Yoko Kikuchi as a trio. She released her first album in March 2019 on KING INTERNATIONAL. This CD won the Excellence Award a recipient of the Agency for Cultural Affairs. Since 2012 she has held a professor position at the Maastricht Conservatorium in the Netherlands.