Kazushi Ono
Encyclopedia
is a Japan
ese conductor
, born in Tokyo
. He studied at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music
, and with Wolfgang Sawallisch
and Giuseppe Patanè
at the Bavarian State Opera
(Bayerische Staatsoper), as a scholar of the Japanese Ministry of Culture. In 1987 he won First Prize in the 3rd Toscanini International Conductors' Competition. He has conducted many international orchestras and operas.
Ono was principal conductor of the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra
from 1992 to 1999 (and is now Conductor Laureate there), and its artistic advisor from 1999 to 2001. During his tenure there, he conducted an 'Opera Concertante Series' of semi-staged performances, including Antonio Salieri
's Prima la musica, poi le parole, Zemlinsky's Eine florentinische Tragödie
, Norma
, The Fiery Angel, Adriana Lecouvreur
, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk
, Turandot
, Paul Hindemith
's Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen
, Sancta Susanna
, Das Nusch-Nuschi
, Nabucco
, Peter Grimes
, Don Carlo, Un ballo in maschera
, Janacek's Jenůfa
, Franz Schreker
's Der ferne Klang
and Richard Strauss
's Die schweigsame Frau
and Salome
. He also commissioned Mark Anthony Turnage's Silent Cities, and gave the Japanese premieres of Hans Werner Henze
's 8th and 9th Symphonies. He was also Chief Conductor of the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra from 1990 to 1996.
Ono was General Music Director of the Baden State Opera, Karlsruhe
from 1996 to 2002. In August 2002 he became music director of La Monnaie
(Brussels
), after his acclaimed debut there in March 2001, conducting Salvatore Sciarrino
's chamber opera Luci mie traditrici. He successfully directed the same production at the New York Lincoln Center in July of that year. Other contemporary operas that Ono has conducted at La Monnaie include Philippe Boesmans
' Julie
. He stepped down as music director at La Monnaie at the end of the 2007-2008 season and became principal conductor of the Opéra National de Lyon
at the start of the 2008-2009 season, with an initial contract of 5 years. In February 2009 he made his debut at the Teatro Comunale Florence
by conducting the premiere of the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 2 by Lorenzo Ferrero
.
Ono is the recipient of the 2009 Suntory Music Award
.
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
, born in Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
. He studied at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music
Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music
or is one of the oldest and most prestigious art schools in Japan. Located in Ueno Park, it also has facilities in Toride, Ibaraki, Yokohama, Kanagawa, and Kitasenju, Adachi, Tokyo...
, and with Wolfgang Sawallisch
Wolfgang Sawallisch
Wolfgang Sawallisch is a retired German conductor and pianist.-Biography:Sawallisch was born in Munich, and studied composition and pianoforte there privately: at the conclusion of the war, in 1946 he continued his studies at the Munich High School for Music and passed his final examination for...
and Giuseppe Patanè
Giuseppe Patanè
Giuseppe Patanè was an Italian opera conductor.Giuseppe Patané was born in Naples, the son of the conductor Franco Patanè , and studied in his native city. He made his debut there in 1951. He was principal conductor at the Linz opera from 1961–1962...
at the Bavarian State Opera
Bavarian State Opera
The Bavarian State Opera is an opera company based in Munich, Germany.Its orchestra is the Bavarian State Orchestra.- History:The opera company which was founded under Princess Henriette Adelaide of Savoy has been in existence since 1653...
(Bayerische Staatsoper), as a scholar of the Japanese Ministry of Culture. In 1987 he won First Prize in the 3rd Toscanini International Conductors' Competition. He has conducted many international orchestras and operas.
Ono was principal conductor of the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra
Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra
The claims to be the oldest classical orchestra in Japan, having been founded in Nagoya in 1911. It moved to Tokyo in 1938 and has some 166 members as of 2005....
from 1992 to 1999 (and is now Conductor Laureate there), and its artistic advisor from 1999 to 2001. During his tenure there, he conducted an 'Opera Concertante Series' of semi-staged performances, including Antonio Salieri
Antonio Salieri
Antonio Salieri was a Venetian classical composer, conductor and teacher born in Legnago, south of Verona, in the Republic of Venice, but who spent his adult life and career as a faithful subject of the Habsburg monarchy....
's Prima la musica, poi le parole, Zemlinsky's Eine florentinische Tragödie
Eine florentinische Tragödie
Eine florentinische Tragödie , Op. 16 is an opera in one act by Alexander Zemlinsky to a libretto adapted by the composer from a German translation by Max Meyerfeld of a play by Oscar Wilde.-Performance history:...
, Norma
Norma (opera)
Norma is a tragedia lirica or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after Norma, ossia L'infanticidio by Alexandre Soumet. First produced at La Scala on December 26, 1831, it is generally regarded as an example of the supreme height of the bel canto tradition...
, The Fiery Angel, Adriana Lecouvreur
Adriana Lecouvreur
Adriana Lecouvreur is an opera in four acts by Francesco Cilea to an Italian libretto by Arturo Colautti, based on the play by Eugène Scribe and Ernest Legouvé...
, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk
Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (opera)
Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District is an opera in four acts by Dmitri Shostakovich, his Op.29. The libretto was written by Alexander Preis and the composer, and is based on the story Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District by Nikolai Leskov. The opera is sometimes referred to informally as Lady Macbeth...
, Turandot
Turandot
Turandot is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni.Though Puccini's first interest in the subject was based on his reading of Friedrich Schiller's adaptation of the play, his work is most nearly based on the earlier text Turandot...
, Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...
's Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen
Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen
Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen is an opera in one act by Paul Hindemith, with a German libretto by Oskar Kokoschka based on his play written in 1907....
, Sancta Susanna
Sancta Susanna
Sancta Susanna is an early opera by Paul Hindemith in one act, with a German libretto by August Stramm. Composed over a two week period in January/February 1921, its premiere was on 26 March 1922, at Opernhaus, Frankfurt....
, Das Nusch-Nuschi
Das Nusch-Nuschi
Das Nusch-Nuschi is an opera in one act by Paul Hindemith, with a German libretto by Franz Blei.Subtitled A Play for Burmese Marionettes it is in fact a fully staged work with both singers and dancers, the second in a triptych of expressionist influenced one-act operas, the others being Mörder,...
, Nabucco
Nabucco
Nabucco is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on the Biblical story and the 1836 play by Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois and Francis Cornue...
, Peter Grimes
Peter Grimes
Peter Grimes is an opera by Benjamin Britten, with a libretto adapted by Montagu Slater from the Peter Grimes section of George Crabbe's poem The Borough...
, Don Carlo, Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera , is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi with text by Antonio Somma. The libretto is loosely based on an 1833 play, Gustave III, by French playwright Eugène Scribe who wrote about the historical assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden...
, Janacek's Jenůfa
Jenufa
Jenůfa is an opera in three acts by Leoš Janáček to a Czech libretto by the composer, based on the play Její pastorkyňa by Gabriela Preissová. It was first performed at the Brno Theater, Brno, 21 January 1904...
, Franz Schreker
Franz Schreker
Franz Schreker was an Austrian composer, conductor, teacher and administrator. Primarily a composer of operas, his style is characterized by aesthetic plurality , timbral experimentation, strategies of extended tonality and...
's Der ferne Klang
Der ferne Klang
Der ferne Klang is an opera by Franz Schreker, libretto by the composer.-Composition history:Drafted in 1901, Schreker completed the three-act libretto in 1903. However, composing the music would take about ten years. Criticism from his composition teacher Robert Fuchs caused Schreker to abandon...
and Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
's Die schweigsame Frau
Die schweigsame Frau
Die schweigsame Frau is an opera in three acts by Richard Strauss with libretto by Stefan Zweig after Ben Jonson's Epicoene, or the Silent Woman.-Performance history:...
and Salome
Salome (opera)
Salome is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by the composer, based on Hedwig Lachmann’s German translation of the French play Salomé by Oscar Wilde. Strauss dedicated the opera to his friend Sir Edgar Speyer....
. He also commissioned Mark Anthony Turnage's Silent Cities, and gave the Japanese premieres of Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze is a German composer of prodigious output best known for "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life"...
's 8th and 9th Symphonies. He was also Chief Conductor of the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra from 1990 to 1996.
Ono was General Music Director of the Baden State Opera, Karlsruhe
Karlsruhe
The City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states...
from 1996 to 2002. In August 2002 he became music director of La Monnaie
La Monnaie
Le Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie , or the Koninklijke Muntschouwburg is a theatre in Brussels, Belgium....
(Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
), after his acclaimed debut there in March 2001, conducting Salvatore Sciarrino
Salvatore Sciarrino
Salvatore Sciarrino is an Italian composer of contemporary classical music.-Biography:In his youth, Sciarrino was attracted to the visual arts, but began experimenting with music when he was twelve. Though he had some lessons from Antonino Titone and Turi Belfiore, he is primarily self-taught as a...
's chamber opera Luci mie traditrici. He successfully directed the same production at the New York Lincoln Center in July of that year. Other contemporary operas that Ono has conducted at La Monnaie include Philippe Boesmans
Philippe Boesmans
-Life:Boesmans was born in Tongeren and studied piano at the Conservatory in Liège, where he was also introduced to serial composing techniques by Pierre Froidebise. However, it was only after coming into contact with the "Liège Group" in 1957 that he began to write music, as a self-taught composer...
' Julie
Julie (opera)
Julie is a one-act chamber opera written by the Belgian composer Philippe Boesmans who is composer-in-residence of the Brussels opera house, La Monnaie...
. He stepped down as music director at La Monnaie at the end of the 2007-2008 season and became principal conductor of the Opéra National de Lyon
Opéra National de Lyon
Opéra National de Lyon is an opera company in Lyon, France which performs in the Nouvel Opéra, a modernized version in 1993 of the original 1831 opera house.The inaugural performance of François-Adrien Boïeldieu's La Dame blanche was given on 1 July 1831...
at the start of the 2008-2009 season, with an initial contract of 5 years. In February 2009 he made his debut at the Teatro Comunale Florence
Teatro Comunale Florence
The Teatro Comunale di Firenze is an opera house in Florence, Italy. It was originally built as the open-air amphitheatre, the Politeama Fiorentino Vittorio Emanuele which was inaugurated on 17 May 1862 with a production of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor and which seated 6,000 people...
by conducting the premiere of the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 2 by Lorenzo Ferrero
Lorenzo Ferrero
Lorenzo Ferrero is a contemporary Italian composer with a predilection for opera, a librettist, author, and book editor. He started composing at an early age and wrote over a hundred compositions thus far, including twelve operas, three ballets, and numerous orchestral, chamber music, solo...
.
Ono is the recipient of the 2009 Suntory Music Award
Suntory Music Award
The , previously known as the , designed to promote Western music in Japan, has been given by the Suntory Music Foundation since their establishment in 1969. The award is presented annually to individuals or groups for the greatest achievement in the development of Western or contemporary music in...
.