Subscription hitaru Concert Series No.17 2024.April.25（Thu）19:00～ Sapporo Cultural Arts Theater hitaru

© Masaaki Tomitori

Junichi HIROKAMI, Friendship Conductor（conductor）

Born in Tokyo, Junichi Hirokami studied piano, composition and music under Atsutada Otaka. Then studied conducting and graduated at Tokyo College of Music. Winner at the first Kondrashin International Conducting Competition in Amsterdam at the sage of 26 in 1984. Since 1990, Junichi Hirokami has appeared as guest conductor with major orchestras throughout the world including the Orchestre National de France, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, and Wiener Symphoniker. Apart from guest appearance he had served as Chief Conductor of Sweden's Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Chief Conductor of the Limburg Symphony Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Principal Conductor of Japan Philharmonic Orchestra and Music Director of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra. In recent years, he has been a guest conductor of orchestras which include the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, L'Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra of Moscow, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. In Japan he has conducted all the major orchestras including NHK Symphony Orchestra and the Saito Kinen Orchestra. He also received great acclaim for his appearance with the Mito Chamber Orchestra. He is prolific in opera as well, having led celebrated performances of "Un ballo in maschera" and "Rigoletto" at the the Sydney Opera House, and his most recent triumphs include "La Traviata" at the Fujiwara Opera, "Le Nozze di Figaro" and "Ainadamar" at the Nissay Theatre, and "La Traviata" and "Aida" at the New National Theatre. From 2008 to 2022 Hirokami has achieved a golden era in Kyoto as Chief Conductor as well as Music and Artistic Advisor of the Kyoto Symphony Orchestra for 14 years. In 2015 he received 46th prestigious Suntory Music Award with Kyoto Symphony Orchestra together. Currently he serves as Friend of JPO / Artistic Advisor at Japan Philharmonic Orchestra and Friendship Conductor at Sapporo Symphony Orchestra (from April 2022). Furthermore he will start his tenure as Artistic Leader at Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa from 2022/23 season. He serves as professor of conducting division at Tokyo College of Music. (from our website)

© Pietro Cinotti

Boris BELKIN（violin）

Boris Belkin emigrated to Israel from the USSR in 1974 and has not lived in Russia since. He began studying the violin at the age of six and made his first public appearance when he was seven with the great conductor Kyrill Kondrashin who was also to later flee the USSR. He studied first at the Central Music School of the Moscow Conservatory with Professors Yankeievitz, Glezarova and Andrievsky, very quickly playing as a soloist all over the Soviet Union with its leading national orchestras whilst he was a student, and in 1973 won first prize in the Soviet Union’s National Competition for Violinists. Boris Belkin played in Moscow at the inaugural 1st Rostropovich Festival in 2011 with Temirkanov and the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra. He emigrated to the west in 1974 and since regularly worked with conductors like Bernstein, Ashkenazy, Mehta, Maazel, Muti, Ozawa, Kurt Sanderling, Temirkanov, Dohnányi, Dutoit, Gelmetti, Herbig, Tennstedt, Rattle, Haitink, Berglund, Mata, Chung, Hirokami, Fedoseyev, Ahronovitch, Welser-Most, Lazalev, Simonov, Gelmetti and Kogan, alongside many others, performing with the world’s leading orchestras including the Boston Symphony, Cleveland, Berlin Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh Symphony, Montreal Symphony, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Royal Concertgebouw and the major British Orchestras. Boris Belkin has regularly returned to the Miyazaki Festival since he was first asked by Isaac Stern to perform with him at it in 1997 and he plays chamber music with artists such as Yuri Bashmet, Mischa Maisky, Georges Pludermacher, and many others. Season ‘12/13 includes several concerts in Paris, Moscow and Spain with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic and Yuri Temirkanov, and tours to South America and Spain with the Moscow Philharmonic. Boris Belkin has featured in several television productions which include a film on Jean Sibelius (performing the Concerto with the Swedish Radio Orchestra and Vladimir Ashkenazy), with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic playing the Tchaikovsky Concerto, with Bernstein and the Orchestra National de France playing Ravel’s Tzigane and with Bernard Haitink and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Mozart and Paganini’s Concerto No.1. Boris Belkin’s first recording, Paganini’s 1st Violin Concerto, was with the Israel Philharmonic and Zubin Mehta and was extremely highly praised. His other discs for Decca include the Tchaikovsky and Sibelius Concertos with The Philharmonia and Ashkenazy, Richard Strauss’s Concerto with Berlin Radio and Ashkenazy, Prokofiev’s Concertos No.1 and No.2 with the London Philharmonic under Kondrashin and Barshai and the Brahms Concerto with the LSO and Fischer. For Denon he has recorded the Prokofiev Concertos with the Zurich Tonhalle and Michael Stern, the concertos by Sibelius, Bruch and Glazunov plus Shostakovich’s 1st Concerto with the Royal Philharmonic and Junichi Hirokami, Tchaikovsky’s Concerto with the London Philharmonic conducted by Michael Stern, Mozart’s Concerto in A major K219 and Sinfonia Concertante with the Salzburg Chamber Soloists and Brahms’ Sonatas with Michel Dalberto. Boris Belkin has held master classes in Siena, Italy, at the famed Accademia Chigiana since 1985 and been Director of Strings for the Imola International Academy Foundation “Incontri con il Maestro” near Bologna in Italy since 2020. (from https://www.patrickgarvey.com/artists/boris-belkin/)