Utente:Sarinch/sandbox

Hirofumi Yoshida is an orchestral conductor. He grew up in Funabashi, Japan, but lives in Italy.

Education

Yoshida’s parents, his father Toru from Tokyo and his mother Ayako from Hokkaido, send their son to the “Kōnodai High School”. Later, following his passion, Yoshida attends the Tokyo College of Music, where he specializes in piano with professor Yukiko Okafuji, in contrabass with Mitsuru Onozaki, in musicology with Reiko Arima and Tomiko Kojiba and in conduction with Yasuhiko Shiozawa, Jun-Ichi Hirokami and Yujiro Tsuda. Between 1994 and 1995, Yoshida move to Vienna to obtain the Music and Arts Master at Vienna’s University with the masters Hans Graf and Julius Kalmar. In 1996, he obtains the Avanced Music Master at the Chigiana Academy of Music in Siena with the masters Juri Temirkanov e Myung-Whun Chung.

Career

Thanks to the collaboration with the director of the Tokyo Nikikai Opera Theatre, from 1994 to 1999, the career of master Yoshida begins. There, he conducts mainly Mozart’s operas including The Marriage of Figaro, Die Zauberfloete and Thus Do They All.

In 1999, Yoshida gains a National student grant to acquire experience in the opera field. He comes to Europe as an artist/researcher sent by the Agency Culture. The student grant allows him to attend three internationally renown theaters: the Malmö Musik Teater in Sweden, the Nationaltheater Mannheim in Germany and the Bayerische Staatsoper in Monaco of Bavaria. Two years later, in 2001, he enters the “International Competition Maazel-Vilar for conductors” as an asian candidate.

In 2002, Yoshida is the first conductor to win the promising young talent prize at the Lyric Opera division of the Gotoh Memorial Cultural Award. In 2003, he wins his second student grant given by the Rhom Music Foundation to get further insight in the Italian lyrics in Rome at the Opera Theatre of Rome and the San Theatre. Furthermore, he is called to be a guest main director at the Adygeyan Republic National Symphony Orchestra in Russia. In 2004 he holds his first role as artistic director at the Ichikawa Opera.

In 2005, thanks to the third place in the “Béla Bartók Memorial International Opera Conducting Competition” prize given for the first time, Yoshida debuts with the Puccini’s Tosca in Europe. The debut follows at the Opera Theatre of Rome with Rusticana and Rigoletto. In the same year he cooperated with the Transylvanian Symphonic Orchestra and the Concert Orchestra of Budapest (MAV).

Finally in 2006, Yoshida debuts with great success at the Verdi Theatre of Trieste with the Opera Theatre of Rome’s ballet company, headed by Carla Fracci. Moreover, he conducts the Keio Wagner Society Orchestra at the Musikverein of Vienna and the Smetana Hall of Prague. At the same time, the master consolidates his skills on Puccini, which will open several opportunities in the following years. Additionally, the Ichikawa Opera Theatre, where Yoshida is music director since 2004, opens its doors to the master to conduct Puccini’s Edgar giving it its Japanese première.

In 2007, Yoshida debuts at the Caracalla’s Thermae in the summer season of the Opera Theatre of Rome, performing Pagliacci and Romeo and Juliet, directed by Carla Fracci, who remembered the brilliant result of the previous year. Thanks to this collaboration, the master has the opportunity to work with the successful director Beppe Menegatti.

Also in 2007, the master is invited to conduct Aida of Verdi by the Cairo National Theatre, original place of the first staging of the performance. Furthermore, in the same year, the Verdi Theatre of Trieste calls again the master to conduct his orchestra, accompanying Antonio Marquez’s ballet La Vida Breve. During the year, he also conducts Tosca at the Opera Theatre of Cluj-Napoca, in Romania.

Thanks to the productive result of the previous year at the Cairo National Theatre, in 2008 the Cairo Opera House invites master Yoshida, who conducts with pleasure Madame Butterfly of Puccini, due to the cultural relationship between the master's japanese origins and the history that Puccini wanted to evoke. This is also the year of the Verdi’s La Traviata in Paris, The Marriage of Figaro in Tokyo and the japanese version of some of the main scenes of the Minoru Miki’s The tale of Genji, which is performed for the first time in Japan. Moreover, the master brings the European opera Don Carlos in Hong Kong, in the East.

2009 is marked by the relationship which the master Yoshida wants to establish between his native culture and that of his guest country. He conducts in Italy another traditional opera of the East culture, the Turandot of Puccini, at the Marrucino Theatre of Chieti, with the intention of underlining the meeting point between European and Asian cultures. On this occasion, Simonetta Puccini, nephew of the master and present among the public, congratulates the master for the performance.

Other results in the same year include the nomination of master Yoshida by the APA division (Asian Pacific Arts) for the “best of 2009: Behind the scenes” prize, the performance of The Elixir of Love of Donizetti with the San Carlo Theatre Orchestra in Ercolano and The Marriage of Figaro of Mozart in Tokyo.

The year 2010 sees the master as a main character at the Puccini’s Festival in Torre del Lago as first Japan conductor to present the Turandot, a Puccini’s opera, together with the well-known director Maurizio Scaparro. 2010 is the year that sees the Rigoletto frequently performed in the most important national theatres, such as the Sociale Theatre in Mantua, the Donizetti Theatre in Bergamo and the Giglio Theatre in Lucca.

Thanks to the cooperation between master Yoshida and the Japan Government, together with the Piemonte Region and the Novara Council, the “Japan Festival in 2011” is born. The presence of the master into the festival's organization is also an incentive to the presence of the Japanese Embassy and the patronage of the General Consul Shigemi Jomori. The master besides representing his own culture, conducts Madame Butterfly. The purpose of his attendance is to bring back to the stage the Kagura (or rather the Gods music), traditional ancient art which includes all of the most typical japanese forms and is considered the Kabuki ancestor. On this occasion, Yoshida works with director Massimo Petruzzi. In the same year he also conducted the orchestra of the Carlo Felice Theatre of Genova.

The year 2011 is characterized by a special event which affects closely master Yoshida. There is an excuse to put an extra date out on playbill to the successful calendar of Novara Carlo Coccia Theatre: the moral support to the tsunami victims of the 11 March 2011. On that occasion, the japanese master reminds the public: «I wish that, even from Novara, everyone's thoughts go to the victims of the March 11th 2011 tsunami in my Country». Yoshida conduct the concert in the San Gaudezio Basilica performing the Mozart’s Requiem K 626 and the requiem of the Japanese conductor Toru Takemitsu.

Recently, in 2012, the Vittorio Emanuele Theatre of Messina calls master Yoshida to conduct La Rondine of Puccini, focusing the attention on the grasp of the master in Puccini’s subject. Here the director is Stefano Vizioli. The opera, rarely performed by Italian conductors, is staged for the first time at the Vittorio Emanuele Theatre by a Japanese conductor.

Master Yoshida among the others acknowledgments holds the lecturer role at the Toho College of Music and the Master course on the subject. Among the latest events to which the master took part is the invite by the Lyric Theatre of Cagliari, to perform at the Music Park in memory of the recent passing of master Piero Bellugi. There, Yoshida conducted Bellini’s Sonnambula and the orchestra placed in concert style for the occasion.