Subscription Concerts 2024-2025Program A
No. 2036 Subscription (Program A)

Fabio Luisi hails from Genoa. He is the Principal Conductor of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and the Music Director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. He first conducted the NHK Symphony Orchestra in 2001, and in September 2022 he became Chief Conductor of the orchestra. He conducted Verdi’s Requiem in the concert to celebrate his appointment, and Mahler’s Symphonie der Tausend to commemorate the orchestra’s 2000th subscription concert in December 2023. These two monumental performances have brought him great success. He has presented works of German and Austrian composers such as Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner and R. Strauss as well as those of Franck and Saint-Saëns, Francophone composers, and with his conducting style full of passion and poetic sentiment, has captured the hearts of many of audience members. In August 2024, he led the orchestra’s Taiwanese tour, and then will also lead a European tour in May 2025, which has been scheduled in conjunction with the Mahler Festival at The Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, the Prague Spring Festival and the Dresdner Musikfestspiele to which the NHK Symphony Orchestra has been invited.
He was General Music Director of the Opernhaus Zürich, Principal Conductor of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Principal Conductor of the Wiener Symphoniker, as well as General Music Director of the Staatskapelle Dresden and the Sächsische Staatsoper, Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the MDR Sinfonieorchester Leipzig, Music Director of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and Chief Conductor of the Tonkünstler Orchester. He is Music Director of the Festival della Valle d’Itria in Martina Franca (Apulia) and has appeared as guest conductor with numerous renowned ensembles, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Münchener Philharmoniker, the Filarmonica della Scala, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the Saito Kinen Orchestra, while also conducting operas at world’s major opera houses. Important recordings include Verdi, Bellini, Schumann, Berlioz, Rachmaninov, Rimsky-Korsakov, Frank Martin, and Franz Schmidt, the largely forgotten Austrian composer. In addition, he has recorded various symphonic poems by Richard Strauss, and a lauded reading of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9 with the Staatskapelle Dresden. His recordings of Wagner’s Siegfried and Götterdämmerung with the Metropolitan Opera won Grammy awards. In May 2025, Bruckner’s Symphony No. 8 (1st version), which is his first CD with the NHK Symphony Orchestra, will be released.

Olesya Petrova is a Russian mezzo-soprano who sings in a powerful and intense voice. She was born in Leningrad, and graduated from the St. Petersburg State Conservatory. She won 2nd prize at the 13th Tchaikovsky International Competition (vocal, female section) in 2007, and the 1st prize at the 2nd Paris Opera Competition in 2012. From 2007 to 2016, she was engaged as a soloist of the St. Petersburg Conservatory Opera and Ballet Theatre, while making her debut at the Metropolitan Opera singing the role of Madelon in Andrea Chénier in 2014. Since 2016, as a soloist at the Mikhailovsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, she has sung the roles of Ulrica in Un ball in maschera, the Countess in The Queen of Spades, and Amneris in Aida. Until now, the opera houses she has appeared at include the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Opernhaus Zürich, the Staatsoper Hamburg, and the Teatro Real in Madrid. She has been invited to the Arena di Verona Festival on a regular basis since 2017, made her debut at the Bolshoi Theatre in 2018 singing the role of Polina in The Queen of Spades, and at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 2023, with the role of Amneris.
She is also actively appearing in concerts. With the NHK Symphony Orchestra under Fabio Luisi, she previously sang Verdi Requiem in September 2022, Mahler’s Sinfonie der Tausend in December 2023, and is expected to sing with the orchestra in its European tour in 2025. In her performance in the coming subscription concert, she will surely illustrate Mahler’s world with her nuanced, emotionally-rich singing.

[Junko Shibatsuji, music critic]

Tokyo Opera Singers was formed in 1992 by mid-career and young vocalists active in Tokyo in response to the late Seiji Ozawa’s request to establish a world-class chorus group in this country. From the year of the foundation, the group has performed at the Saito Kinen Festival Matsumoto (Presently called Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival), and since 2004, consistently appeared at the Spring Festival in Tokyo while working with visiting opera companies and orchestras, including the Wiener Philharmoniker (under Simon Rattle and Seiji Ozawa), the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (under Riccardo Muti), and the Bayerische Staatsoper (under Wolfgang Sawallisch). The group also enjoys high artistic evaluation overseas, and has appeared in the Edinburgh International Festival (1999), the China Shanghai International Arts Festival (2018), the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra Concert (2019), and “Meet in Beijing” International Arts Festival (2020).
Since its first collaboration with the NHK Symphony Orchestra in 2009 singing in the oratorio The Creation, it has worked with the orchestra in many occasions, including the orchestra’s year-end Beethoven 9th concerts and the Wagner series in the Spring Festival of Tokyo since its first year (2010). At the time of the orchestra’s concert of Faust Symphony conducted by Fabio Luisi in December 2024, Tokyo Opera Singers’ male chorus sung magnificently.

[Junko Shibatsuji, music critic]

NHK Tokyo Children’s Chorus (formerly known as Tokyo Broadcasting Children’s Chorus Group), formed in March 1952 aiming to enrich NHK’s education and children’s programs for the healthy growth of the minds and spirits of children, performs with major Japanese orchestras and engages in exchange projects with overseas chorus groups in addition to its appearances in NHK’s broadcasts. The chorus also introduces works which it has commissioned Japanese composers to write to Japanese and overseas audiences. In 2022, it marked the 70th anniversary of its foundation.
The chorus has won many prizes in competitions at home and abroad, including 1st prize in the children’s category of the Centennial of Zoltán Kodály’s Birth Competition and the grand prix in the competition’s general category. In 2009, it worked with the NHK Symphony Orchestra in the concert to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the marriage of the Emperor and Empress, and the 20th anniversary of the Emperor’s enthronement. It also performs in operatic works staged at New National Theatre, and participated in Royal Opera’s Turandot on its Japan tour in 2024. NHK Tokyo Children’s Chorus appeared in the NHK Symphony Orchestra’s subscription concert for the first time in November 1971, singing in La damnation de Faust under Jean Fournet. And in recent years, it sang in Tchaikovsky’s ballet music The Nutcracker in December 2018, and in Mahler’s Symphonie der Tausend in December 2023 with the orchestra.

[Junko Shibatsuji, music critic]