Van Walsum Management is delighted to announce the signing for worldwide management of conductor Kazushi Ono

Ono is now in his second season as Principal Conductor of the Opéra de Lyon, where on 1 March 2010 he conducts the world premiere of Emilie by the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, with soprano Karita Mattila in the title role of Emilie du Châtelet. This season he has already conducted Puccini’s Manon Lescaut in Lyon, following award-winning productions of Prokofiev’s The Gambler and Berg’s Lulu in 2008/9.

Stephen Wright, Chairman of Van Walsum, says:

“I am delighted that Kazushi Ono is joining Van Walsum for worldwide management.  For many years now, I have both admired, and enjoyed, his passionate and elegant conducting.”

The Financial Times has praised Ono’s ability to combine “sheer excitement with breadth of vision and exquisite timing,” while the New York Times, reviewing his Metropolitan Opera debut in 2007, observed that: “People on both sides of the footlights seemed impressed by Kazushi Ono’s conducting, filled with a musical energy narrowed and pinpointed by elegant technique.” At the end of March 2010 he returns to the Metropolitan Opera, New York, to conduct Der fliegende Holländer together with performances of Stravinsky’s Le Rossignol at the Aix-en-Provence Festival this summer and Verdi’s Nabucco at the Bayerische Staatsoper in 10/11.

Tokyo-born Ono, who is currently Conductor Laureate of the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra and formerly Music Director of La Monnaie, Brussels, Principal Conductor of the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra and General Music Director of the Badisches Staatstheater, studied in Japan before moving to Munich in the 1980s to work at the Bayerische Staatsoper with Wolfgang Sawallisch and Giuseppe Patanè.

In opera, his recent guest appearances include Elektra at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Macbeth at La Scala, Hänsel und Gretel at Glyndebourne and a new production of Szymanowski’s King Roger in Paris. In the concert hall, he has appeared as a guest conductor with orchestras such as the Leipzig Gewandhaus, London Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony, BBC Symphony, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Oslo Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Vienna Radio Symphony, Boston Symphony, Israel Philharmonic and Orchestra di Santa Cecilia Rome. In Autumn 2009 his tour of Japan with the Orchestre de l'Opéra de Lyon was hailed as a triumph, while forthcoming dates include appearances with the Rotterdam, Netherland and Israel Philharmonic Orchestras, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, SWR Baden-Baden and l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.

As might be inferred from the range of his active repertoire, Ono, who sees the human voice as the fundamental force in music, does not believe in simple classifications:

“It is important to gain as complete an understanding as possible of the horizons of musical history – of the influences on each composer, and of the way he influenced his successors. To conduct Mahler, you need to know Mozart. To conduct Schoenberg, you need to know Mahler … They are all in the same creative line. Equally, to conduct the operas of Mozart and Strauss, you need to be intimate with their orchestral music too. And, as Bruno Walter pointed out, while a symphony can be perceived as a purely musical entity, an understanding of literary context and zeitgeist is essential when you conduct an opera. These are all reasons why a conductor needs to take time with his career … He needs time to learn.”

For further information please contact Simon Millward at Albion Media, simon@albion-media.co.uk, +44 (0)20 7629 3252