members

Meet the Orchestra

In October 2005, the Hyogo Performing Arts Center Orchestra (HPAC Orchestra) began its long-awaited inaugural season. This new orchestra is the center of the new Hyogo Performing Arts Center (HPAC), a symbol of the cultural rebirth of the Hanshin-Awaji region devastated by the 1995 earthquake. Performances cover a broad repertoire, including chamber music, large-scale orchestral works, opera, and ballet. In addition, the orchestra engages in a wide range of community outreach activities.
Under the leadership of internationally renowned conductor Maestro Yutaka Sado, HPAC Orchestra serves as a final training ground for professional-level musicians from around the world. The orchestra’s core membership comprises 48 young professional musicians up to 35 years of age, and their term up to three years. Members were selected through competitive auditions held regularly in Japan, Europe and North America. Orchestra members gain invaluable experience performing with world-class conductors and soloists, and working with top-level coaches. During the contracted period, the members are encouraged to participate in auditions and competitions. Many members have received tenured positions at various orchestras worldwide, such as Munich Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, Tokyo Symphony and Kyoto Symphony Orchestra.

Conductor & Artistic Director

Yutaka Sado

Yutaka Sado Graduated from Kyoto City University of Arts and studied under the late Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa, and others. He won the Besançon Conductiong Competition in 1989, and the 1st Leonard Bernstein Jerusalem International Conducting Competition in 1995. He has made numerous guest appearances with Europe’s top orchestras, including Orchestre de Paris, Deutsches Symphonie-orchester Berlin, WDR Symphony orchestra Cologne, Bavarian State Opera Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, and North German Radio Symphony Orchestre (currently named as NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra). He worked as Music Director of the Tonkünstler Orchestra, Austria’s leading orchestra with a history of over 110 years, for 10 years until June 2025, after which he became the orchestra’s honorary conductor. He has performed many operas overseas, including Madama Butterfly at the Oranje Festival (performed by the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande), Peter Grimes, Carmen and Le nozze di Figaro at Teatro Regio in Turin. In Japan, he is Artistic Director of Hyogo Performing Arts Center, Music Director of the New Japan Philharmonic and Principal Conductor of the Siena Wind Orchestra, and has released many CDs, the latest being his 23rd CD as conductor of the Tonkünstler Orchestra, Mahler: Symphony No.8 (released in May 2026). His publications include How I Became a Conductor (Shincho Bunko), and A Life of Waving Sticks: Conductors Sculpt Time (PHP Bunko/Shinsho). He has received numerous awards, including the Idemitsu Music Award (1991), the Montblanc International Cultural Award (2003), the Akio Watanabe Music Foundation Music Award (2003), the Tokiko Iwatani Award (2014), the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Commendation (2024), and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Commendation (2025).
Yutaka Sado’s web site:http://yutaka-sado.meetsfan.jp

Greeting from Yutaka Sado

Resident Conductor

The Resident Conductor plays a wide range of roles, from educational programs to subscription concerts.

Chikara Iwamura

Chikara Iwamura graduated from the Science and Technology Electronic Communication Department of the Waseda University as well as the Performance Department of the Toho Gakuen School of Music. Iwamura has won prizes at numerous competitions, including the first prize (and also the Master Players Grand Prize) at the Conductor Division of the Master Players International Music Competition, and the second prize (and also the Orchestra Special Prize) at the Mario Gusella International Conducting Competition. He conducted the NHK Symphony Orchestra at a subscription concert in September 2003 and the Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto in Cortina, Italy, upon an appointment by Martha Argerich. From 2000 to 2007, Assistant Conductor of the NHK Symphony Orchestra. Since 2010, Resident Conductor of the Hyogo Performing Arts Center Orchestra. In 2015, received Hyogo Prefecture Achievement Award.

Concertmaster

Three specialists in orchestra, opera, and chamber music lead this orchestra as concertmasters.

Masaaki Tanokura

After graduating from the Music High School attached to the Faculty of Music, Tokyo University of the Arts, Masaaki Tanokura entered the university. He then earned a scholarship to study abroad at the Juilliard School in New York and earned his bachelor’s degree.
He won the 2nd prize in the Japanese Music Competition and the 6th Carl Nielsen International Violin Competition in 2000. He has won many well-known competitions and won top prizes.
He became the concertmaster of the Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra in 2004 (retired in March 2014). He has been the Concertmaster of the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra since April 2012 and the Chief Concertmaster of the Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra since April 2014. From September 2019, he was appointed as the concertmaster of the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra. He has been nominated as a concertmaster by domestic orchestras and conductors, and his confidence is very strong.
He is currently a part-time lecturer at Kyoto Municipal Kyoto Horikawa Music High School.

Yasushi Toyoshima

He studied under Toshiya Eto and Angela Eto at the Toho Gakuen School of Music. In 1986 he was appointed principal concertmaster for the New Japan Philharmonic at the age of twenty-two. He made his recital debut as a soloist at Suntory Hall in 1988, and after that has performed together with the many Japanese and international orchestras including the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Bashmet & the Moscow Soloists, the London Mozart Orchestra. He was the recipient of the Muramatsu Prize and the first Idemitsu Prize in 1991 and the Cultural and Education Ministry’s New Artist of the Year Award in 1992 and the Hyogo Cultural Award in 2013. He is a professor at Kyoto City University of Arts, and also lectures at Toho Gakuen University and Graduate School.

Core Members

The core members are professionals, mainly composed of young musicians under the age of 35. We are recruiting from all over the world including Japan, Asia, Europe and America. Through subscription concerts, chamber music, opera, ballet and other performances, we work on the repertoire of orchestras from baroque to modern times for up to three years.

Violin

Hikaru Arai
Seika Ikeda
Natsuko Inoko
Naxin Yin
Honoka Uehara
Satori Otsuka
Asako Kato
Benjamin Kremer
Ikumi Shishido
Ayano Tajiri
Shiyori Tanaka
Mamiko Hara
June Hitsumoto
Saeko Fujioka
Erika Moriwaki
Kanna Yamamoto

Viola

John Harry Clark
Woo Seok Cho
Ayami Tsuge
Gene Hotta
Saho Yamamoto

Cello

Kaoru Aiura
George Jennings
Fiona Cheng
Mei Hotta

Contrabass

Takehiro Takayama
Hitomi Numano
Kazuki Motohashi

Flute

Koharu Ishihara
Yeji Shin

Oboe

Shinsuke Inoue

Clarinet

Kim Linsa
Marie Hayashi

Bassoon

Oisin Nishikawa

Horn

Kanata Unane

Trumpet

Haruki Minagawa

Trombone

Stefan Benčïč

Bass Trombone

Reo Yamada

Timpani & Percussion

Felix Ko
Zoe Beyler

Resident Players

Players who are selected by audition every season and participate in various performances with the core members of the PAC orchestra throughout the year.