Izumi Sinfonietta Osaka
Izumi Sinfonietta Osaka
The resident orchestra of Sumitomolife Izumi Hall, focusing on performance of contemporary music.
profile
Orchestra Profile
Music Director: Dai Fujikura /
Honorary Music Director: Akira Nishimura
/ Permanent Conductor: Norichika Iimori
Concert Advisor: Motoharu Kawashima
Solo Concertmaster: Machie Oguri
Founded in 2000 at the initiative of Akira Nishimura, a composer from Osaka, Japan.
Since that time, their main activities have been periodic concerts at this Hall, where they have expanded their repertoire to include premieres of new works and other modern and contemporary works as well as classical works.
The core composition is a chamber orchestra with a single woodwind section, and it varies depending on the piece.
The members consist of musicians who are related to the local community, such as those who live in or are from the Kansai region.
Received the 2001 Osaka Performing Arts Award.
<Metamorphosis> (Camerata) was well acclaimed and won the 2005 Art Festival Excellence Award. They performed in Tokyo at Kioi Hall in 2005 and 2008 and received favorable reviews.
In October 2024, Dai Fujikura was appointed Music Director, succeeding Akira Nishimura (1953-2023).
Introduction of Music Director and Permanent Conductor
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Music Director
Dai Fujikura
Dai Fujikura is a London-based composer that was born in Osaka, Japan in 1977. He moved to the UK at fifteen and studied under Sir George Benjamin.
In 2020, Fujikura’s opera “A Dream of Armageddon,” based on H.G. Wells’ story of the same name, premiered at the New National Theatre Tokyo and was widely acclaimed. That same year, his Fourth Piano Concerto, “Akiko’s Piano,” commemorated the 75th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing and was released by Sony Music. His work “Entwine” has been performed by orchestras including the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln and the New York Philharmonic.
His orchestral work “Wavering World” was commissioned by the Seattle Symphony and performed by other notable orchestras around the globe. His music theatre piece “Metamorphosis of a Living Room,” in collaboration with theatre director Toshiki Okada, has been staged in several cities and is set to premiere in Japan in 2024.
Fujikura has presented three operas: “SOLARIS” (2015), co-commissioned by several European opera houses; “The Gold-Bug” (2018), commissioned by Theatre Basel; and “A Dream of Armageddon” commissioned by New National Theatre Tokyo (2020).
His collaborations span various genres, working with artists like Ryuichi Sakamoto and David Sylvian. For the film “Mitsubachi to Enrai” (LISTEN TO THE UNIVERSE), he composed “Spring and Asura.”
Fujikura has composed for traditional Japanese instruments as well as European period instruments. Since 2017 he has been the Artistic Director of the Born Creative Festival at Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre. He also curated concerts at La Folle Journée au Japon in 2016 and 2019.
His music has been recorded on labels such as NMC, Kairos, Sony Music, and Fujikura’s own record label, Minabel Records. He has received numerous prestigious awards, including the Ivor Novello Award and the Silver Lion from the Venice Biennale.
His works are published by Ricordi Berlin. -
Honorary Music Director
Akira Nishimura
Honorary Music Director
Akira Nishimura
Born in Osaka. Graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts.
Completed a graduate course at the same university.
While studying contemporary Western composition techniques, he also developed a strong interest in traditional Asian music, religion, aesthetics, and cosmology while still in school, and has produced numerous works to date based on concepts such as heterophony derived from this interest.
He won the first prize in the composition division of the Music Competition of Japan, the grand prize in the composition division of the Queen Elisabeth Competition, the Luigi Dallapiccola Composition Award, the Otaka Award (five times), the Kenzo Nakajima Music Award, the Kyoto Music Award [PracticeDivision Award], the Japan Contemporary Art Promotion Award, the ExxonMobil Music Award, the 3rd Bekku Award, the 36th Suntory Music Award, and the 47th Mainichi Art Award, etc.
and was awarded the Medal with Purple Ribbon in 2013.
In addition, his CD was selected for the Art Festival Grand Prize in 2002, and for the Art Festival Excellence Award in 2005 and 2015.
He has been the Music Director of Izumi Sinfonietta Osaka since 2000. In 2010, he was appointed Music Director of the Kusatsu International Summer Music Academy & Festival.
In 2007, he became the theme composer for the Tokyo Opera City Composium 2007.
Many of his works have been performed and he has served on the jury of the Toru Takemitsu Composition Award. He serves as a commentator for NHK-FM’s Contemporary Music, first from 2003 to 2009 and again from April 2015 to the present, and hosted NHK E-Television’s NHK Symphony Orchestra Hour from 2009 to 2012.
He has been invited to create new works for the Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival, the October in Normandy music festival, the Arditti Quartet, the Kronos Quartet, ELISION, the Hanover Contemporary Music Society, Radio France, and others, and his works have been performed at the Wien Modern music festival, the Warsaw Autumn contemporary music festival, the Musica Festival Strasbourg, the Brisbane Music Festival, and others. In addition, he served on the jury of the 2009 Gaudeamus International Composition Competition,where his work was performed during Music Week.
In February 2019, his work Shion Monogatari, the New National Theatre’s first production commissioned in six years and a world premiere, was performed with great success under the direction of Kazushi Ono, Artistic Director of Opera.
He died on September 7, 2023 at the age of 69. -
Permanent Conductor
Norichika Iimori
Graduated from Toho Gakuen School of Music, Conducting Course. Permanent Conductor of the Izumi Sinfonietta Osaka. He pursued diligent studies in Berlin and Munich, and has performed as a guest with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic, the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra, and others. In 2001, he was appointed General Music Director (GMD) of the Wüerttemberg Philharmonic Orchestra in Germany, and recorded the complete Beethoven symphonies as well as leading a successful tour of Japan. In Japan, he has maintained a close relationship with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra since 1994, serving as a resident conductor, Associate Conductor, and Special Guest Conductor. In 2003, he made his debut with Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 at the NHK Symphony Orchestra Regular Concert. In 2006, he received the Art Encouragement Award for New Artists from the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, and has been the Music Director of the Yamagata Symphony Orchestra since 2007, where his energetic activities have been highly acclaimed. He is currently the Music Director of the Pacific Philharmonia Tokyo, the Principal Conductor of the Japan Century Symphony Orchestra, the Conductor Laureate of the Yamagata Symphony Orchestra, the Principal Guest Conductor of the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra, and the Principal Guest Conductor of the Chubu Philharmonic Orchestra. He will assume the position of Permanent Conductor of the Gunma Symphony Orchestra in April 2023. In October 2020, he conducted Britten’s opera A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the opening performance of the New National Theatre’s 2020/2021 season, which was well received and a great success.
MOVIE
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Introduction of Izumi Sinfonietta Osaka
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Latest videos of the concerts