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Born in Tokyo in 1958, Junichi Hirokami studied conducting, piano, musicology, and viola at the prestigious Tokyo College of Music. He began his conducting career at age 26, after winning the first Kondrashin International Conducting Competition in Amsterdam. The jury included distinguished international musicians Bernard Haitink and Vladimir Ashkenazy, who subsequently invited Hirokami to conduct during a 1985 concert tour in Japan with the NHK Symphony Orchestra. The success of that tour was followed by another collaboration with Ashkenazy the following year, with the Orchestre National de Paris.
Maestro Hirokami is a favorite at the Japan Philharmonic, where he served as Principal Guest Conductor. Other regular engagements in Japan include concerts with the NHK Symphony Orchestra (Tokyo), Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, and orchestras in other large Japanese cities, including Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Kyushu (Fukuoka), Kanagawa (Yokohama), Sendai, and Kanazawa.
Since 1990, he has conducted major orchestras in Europe, including the Concertgebouw, the Oslo and Stockholm philharmonics, the Vienna Symphony, Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, Madrid Symphony Orchestra, Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, Slovenian Philharmonic and Verdi Orchestra Milan. Between 1988 and 1995, Hirokami was affiliated with Sweden’s Norrkoping Symphony Orchestra where, during his tenure as Chief Conductor, he recorded for the BIS (Sweden) and Fun House (Japan) labels, toured the orchestra to Japan, and oversaw the building of a state-of-the-art concert hall.
His acclaimed debut with the Philharmonia Orchestra of London in April 2000 followed overwhelming successes with the London Philharmonic, London Symphony, and the BBC Orchestra. Since 1992, he has worked regularly with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, including recording the highly praised release of Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 and Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique on the Denon label.
Hirokami launched his North American career in 1996 with the Toronto Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Dallas Symphony. Other symphonic engagements have included Baltimore, Columbus, Denver, Detroit, Fort Worth, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Ottawa, Pittsburgh, St Louis, Seattle, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Calgary, and Charlotte.
In 1989, Hirokami made his operatic debut in a new production of Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera with the Australian Opera in Sydney, and was immediately re-invited to conduct Rigoletto in 1990 and La Forza Del Destino in 1992. Hirokami served as Chief Conductor of the Limburg Symphony Orchestra in Holland, directing their opera as well. He was the first Japanese conductor to direct the Israel Philharmonic. He was Principal Guest Conductor with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic from 1997-2000, achieving great success directing choral works, including Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Brahms’ German Requiem, Mozart’s Requiem, and Haydn’s Creation.
On January 2006, Hirokami was named as Music Director of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra. Furthermore, he has just appointed as Chief Conductor of Kyoto Symphony Orchestra and it will begin from April 2008.
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