Page 11 - FINAL_CBSO Media Highlights - Sept 2021 - Jan 2022_Neat

Maddock cites a concert just before the Covid pandemic as illustrative of Yamada’s
particular musical strengths. “The programme featured all three of Respighi’s Roman
tone poems – music that has a reputation for being a bit over the top, tasteless even, but
you came away thinking: ‘Wow, these are masterpieces of orchestration and description
– those are far better pieces than I had realised!’” A 2019 performance of Elijah, too,
found Mendelssohn’s often rather well-behaved oratorio sound fervent and vibrant.
“Again, the reactions were, ‘This is a much better piece than I remember!’”

The best thing for me about the CBSO is they know how to enjoy music. We always create
something fresh and exciting
Kazuki Yamada

From their earliest concerts together, the CBSO players and Yamada established a
warm relationship, said Maddock, consolidated on a 2016 tour of Japan. “In rehearsal
he has a laser-like ability to focus on what is the most important thing to get right. The
players like that he is demanding, but it’s from a position of good grace, humour and
respect.”

But it was when Yamada conducted the British premiere of Julian Anderson’s cello
concerto earlier this year that Maddock knew they had found their chief conductor.
“New music is such an important part of the CBSO’s identity and when we finally did
some with him the last piece of the jigsaw fell into place. It’s a complicated work, and he
did it brilliantly. He was completely inside it and so clear. Julian was delighted, as was
the soloist, Alban Gerhardt.

“At that point we thought this is silly to extend our search when we’ve got somebody
standing here right in front of us who has all that we need.”

“The CBSO is a very special orchestra,” said Yamada, who will become the first non-
European to lead it. “I can still hardly believe it!” He jokes that he had not dared
consider himself as in the running as, at 42, he assumed he was too old for a role that
for the past four decades has been given to conductors in their early 30s and even – in
Simon Rattle’s case – at 25. Like the latter, Yamada was a percussionist before he
turned to conducting: he first found himself in front of a small orchestra at 17. “Straight
away it felt special,” he says, and his future path was clear.

His 20s saw him working mostly in Japan but at 30 he won the Besançon international
competition for young conductors, which led to European dates and a UK debut with
the BBC Symphony Orchestra. He was principal guest conductor of Orchestre de la
Suisse Romande from 2012-2017, and has appeared with such orchestras as Sächsische
Staatskapelle Dresden, Orchestre de Paris, Bergen Philharmonic and Philharmonia
Orchestra. He is currently principal conductor and artistic director of Orchestre
Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, and in Japan holds the titles that include permanent
conductor of Japan Philharmonic and music director of the Philharmonic Chorus of
Tokyo.