General Music Director of the State Theatre of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.
He spent his childhood in Japan, where he studied violin under Yutaka Kazaoka. At the age of 12, he went to Europe and studied violin under Walter Barili and piano under Getrud Kubasek at the Vienna Conservatory.
In 1986, he moved to the United States and studied under Dorothy DeLay and Hyo Kang at the Juilliard School, but due to an injury to his left hand (focal dystonia), he gave up the violin and switched to conducting. He studied conducting under Nagao Komatsu, Michael Charlie, and Seiji Ozawa. He also studied music analysis and composition at Mannes College of Music, from which he received the George and Elizabeth Gregory Award. He participated in the Tanglewood Music Festival as a scholarship student in 1993 and 1995, studying under Seiji Seiji Ozawa Rattle. In 1995, he won fourth place at the Nikolai Malko International Conducting Competition held in Denmark.
He has served as assistant conductor to Seiji Ozawa, Simon Rattle, Bernard Haitink, and others subscription concert, as well as at the Tanglewood Music Festival. He has also served as Chief Kapellmeister at the Komische Oper Berlin (KOB) and Principal Guest Conductor at the Osaka Symphony Orchestra. At the KOB, he conducted operas such as "The Marriage of Figaro," "Turandot," and "The Golden Cockerel," and delivered high-quality performances at orchestra concerts.
At the Magdeburg Theater, where he served as general music director until the 2019 season, he conducted premieres such as "The Abduction from the Seraglio," "Cosi fan tutte," "The Freischütz," "Macbeth," "Un Ballo in Mascherano," "La Bohème," "Madame Butterfly," "Tosca," "The Flying Dutchman," "Tristan and Isolde," "Der Rosenkavalier," "The Bride of Messina (German premiere)," "City of Death," "Salome," and "Die Walküre."
As a guest conductor, he has conducted the Dresden Philharmonic, the German Chamber Orchestra, the Augsburg Opera Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, and the Taiwan National Symphony Orchestra, among others.
In Japan, he has conducted the NHK Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra, Sapporo Symphony Orchestra, etc. In opera, he conducted "The Marriage of Figaro" at the Biwako Hall Opera Biennale and "The Magic Flute" at the Kansai Nikikai. He also appeared at the Kusatsu International Music Festival.
In 2010, he received the 9th Saito Hideo Memorial Fund Award in the Conducting Category. He donated the entire amount of the prize money to the Junior Philharmonic Orchestra, in accordance with his wish to contribute to the training of the next generation of musicians.