NNTT
https://www.nntt.jac.go.jp/english/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI0frG-tiE4AIVh7FRCh3vDwVKEAEYASAAEgLiNPD_BwE
The Heart of Performing Arts in Japan
https://www.nntt.jac.go.jp/english/about/
Opera ASTERS world premiere
https://www.nntt.jac.go.jp/english/productions/opera/asters-2019.html
Kazushi ONO
https://www.nntt.jac.go.jp/english/opera/artistic-director.html
Kazushi ONO
Described as "one of the most fascinating musical minds of our era" and "a phenomenon" (Le Figaro), Kazushi Ono has held the position of Principal Conductor of Opera National de Lyon since the start of the 2008/09 season and is also Conductor Laureate of Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini. In June 2013 Kazushi Ono was appointed Music Director designate of Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, a position he will take up in April 2015.
High profile positions have played an important part in Kazushi Ono's career to date: in 2002 he succeeded Antonio Pappano as Music Director of Theatre Royal de la Monnaie, Brussels and it was here that his debut production of Strauss's Elektra was described by the Suddeutsche Zeitung as "the miracle of Brussels". Kazushi Ono enjoyed six highly successful seasons at La Monnaie before moving to his current position at Opera
National de Lyon.
During his current tenure in Lyon new, award-winning and critically-acclaimed productions of Prokofiev's The Gambler, Berg's Lulu, Stravinsky's Le Rossignol et autres fables, Verdi's Luisa Miller, Shostakovich's The Nose and Wagner's Parsifal have been staged. During the 2012/13 season, Kazushi Ono has conducted new productions of Verdi's Macbeth, Beethoven's Fidelio and a double bill featuring Dallapiccola's Il prigioniero and Schoenberg's Erwartung. He will also conduct Fidelio in August 2013 when Opera National de Lyon perform at Edinburgh
International Festival.
Kazushi Ono enjoys relationships with many of the world's top opera houses and has appeared as a guest conductor at Glyndebourne Festival Opera (L'heure espagnole, L'enfant et les sortileges and Haensel und Gretel),Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich (Der fliegende Hollaender and Haensel und Gretel), Festival d'Aix-en-Provence (Le Rossignol), Deutsche Oper, Berlin (Elektra), La Scala, Milan (Macbeth), Metropolitan Opera, New York (Der fliegende Hollaender) and Opera de Paris (Kol Roger). He has a strong affection for the theatre and works not only with established opera directors such as Luc Bondy, Peter Stein, Laurent Pelly and David McVicar, but has also enjoyed collaborations with artists outside the traditional opera field such as the visual artist Jan Fabre, choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker and film director Francois Girard.
Kazushi Ono is a guest conductor with some of the leading international orchestras, including City of Birmingham Symphony, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.
A Grammy 2012 award winner ('Diva Divo': Joyce DiDonato with Orchestre de l'Opera National de Lyon), Kazushi Ono's varied catalogue of CD recordings demonstrates his wide repertoire, ranging from Chin (Deutsche Grammophon), Gubaidulina, Britten, Turnage and Rihm to Shostakovich, Mahler, Strauss and Tchaikovsky. Other recent recordings include a 2009 Decca DVD of the acclaimed production of Humperdinck's Haensel und Gretel filmed with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at Glyndebourne as well as releases from the Opus Arte label featuring productions of Verdi's Aida and Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress,
both with La Monnaie, Brussels. A DVD of the highly successful 2012 production of the Ravel double bill L'heure espagnole and L'enfant et les sortileges at Glyndebourne is scheduled to be released in September 2013.
http://www.kazushiono.com
Tomohiro Takada
Tomohiro Takada graduated from Kunitachi College of Music in 1999. After Studying at Niki-Kai Opera Studio, he graduated with top honors from Kunitachi College of Music graduate school where he majored German Lied. He received Docomo Award as well when graduate. In 2003, he won the second prize at Yuai German Lied Competition. In 2005, he received Tamaki Miura Special Award from the 4th Shizuoka International Opera Competition and he won the first prize at the 4th International Nagakute Opera Competition in 2006.
Since 2003 to 2005, he joined Seiji Ozawa Ongaku Juku Opera Project. He was a cover cast of Eisenstein in J. Strauss II’s Die Fledermaus, Marcello in Puccini’s La Boheme, and Figaro in Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia. He performed in the cover-cast concert at Joetsu, Utsunomiya, Kobe, Tenshin, and Shanghai. He also performed Count Almaviva in Mozart’s Le Nozze Di Figaro and Figaro in Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia at Saito Kinen Orchestra Opera Concert for Young People.
He also performed Guglielmo in Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte as well as Bernard in Kuhlau’s Die Raeberburg of Japan premier at the 4th subscription concert of the International Friedrich Kuhlau Society. As a soloist, he performed Beethoven’s Symphony No.9, Faure’s Requiem, and Brahms’s Ein Deutches Requiem.
He has studied under Uwe Heilmann, Kyoko Akiba, Yasutomo Nozaki, Susumu Matsumoto, and Tom Krause. Currently lives in Germany, he has been singing at Oper Kiel, Germany since September 2007.
Akira NISHIMURA
Mr. Nishimura was born in Osaka 1953. He studied composition and musical theory to post graduate level at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. In 1977 he won the first of his numerous later prize winnings at the Queen Elizabeth International Music Composition Competition with HETEROPHONY for string quartet (1975) and the Luigi Dallapiccola Composition Award with MUTAZIONI (1977). In 1980 KECAK (1979) was selected as the best work at the International Rostrum of Composers , and he won awards at the ISCM World Music Days with ODE for EKSTASIS (1981) in 1982, then in 1984, 1988 and 1990. The Otaka Prizes were awarded to him in 1988 for HETEROPHONY for two pianos and orchestra(1987), in 1992 for A RING OF LIGHTS, double concerto for violin, piano and orchestra, and in 1993 for INTO THE LIGHTS OF THE ETERNAL CHAOS. In 2001, he was awarded the ExxonMobil Music Prize and in 2004, the Suntory Music Award. He was composer-in-residence of the Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa (1993-94) and of the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra (1994-97).
Nishimura principally employs heterophony, a characteristic device of Asian traditional music, thereby subtly transforming the intervals, rhythm and melody of his dense multi-layered textures. Though similar to 'micropolyphony' of Ligeti, an Asian perspective informs his technique. Some works are heterophonic melodically, such as HETEROPHONY (1975), and some rhythmically, as in KECAK; the superimposition of trills, tremolos and harmonics contributes to the more complex textures of his later works.
He has been commissioned from many overseas music festivals and ensembles such as ULTIMA Contemporary Music Festival Oslo, Octobre en Normandie, Arditti Quartet, Kronos Quartet, ELISION Ensemble, Hannover Society of Contemporary Music and so on.
He is currently a Professor at the Tokyo College of Music and the Musical Director of the Izumi Sinfonietta Osaka, KUSATSU International Music Festival.
Cast
https://www.nntt.jac.go.jp/english/productions/opera/asters-2019.html