No. 2049 Subscription (Program C)

Charles Dutoit has captivated audiences throughout the world for over six decades with his charismatic, elegant, passionate and idiomatic interpretations. He is Music Director Emeritus of the NHK Symphony Orchestra after having served as its Principal Conductor (1996–1998) and Music Director (1998–2003).
Born in Lausanne in 1936, he commenced his career as a violinist, before participating in the conducting masterclasses given by Herbert von Karajan at the Lucerne Festival. He furthered his studies by attending the legendary Ernest Ansermet’s rehearsals in Geneva. Under Ansermet’s influence, he was able to cultivate his apprenticeship of the Ballets Russes composers: Stravinsky, Ravel and Debussy. In 1959, he made his professional conducting debut with the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne and Martha Argerich as soloist. During his first trip to the United States, he met Pierre Monteux and Charles Munch at the Tanglewood Music School.
Former Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, he enjoyed an artistic collaboration with The Philadelphia Orchestra for thirty-two years. He was Music Director of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal for twenty-five years and held the same position with L’Orchestre National de France for ten years. His interest in mentoring young artists has led to positions as Music Director of the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo and the Verbier Festival Orchestra.
His latest collaboration with the NHK Symphony Orchestra took place in October 2024 when he performed the program around Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring for the NHK Music Festival. This time is his first appearance at the orchestra’s subscription concerts in eight years with two programs featuring Messiaen and Holst as well as celebrating the 150th Anniversary of Ravel’s birth.

The Nikikai is an organization of singers formed in 1952 with sixteen vocalists for further promotion and development of the operatic and vocal culture of Japan. It has over 2,700 vocal members today as the country’s largest vocal institution.
The Nikikai Chorus Group, established within the Nikikai in 1953, has played an essential role at the Nikikai’s operatic performances in a variety of repertoires of different languages, including Mozart’s Così fan tutte and Le nozze di Figaro, Richard Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten, Bizet’s Carmen, Wagner’s Tannhäuser and Parsifal, Handel’s Deidamia, Verdi’s La Traviata and Don Carlo, and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. The chorus has also appeared at its own concerts as well as major orchestras’ concerts under the baton of esteemed conductors including Charles Dutoit, Gerd Albrecht, Vladimir Ashkenazy, André Previn and Eliahu Inbal.
This is the chorus’s first collaboration with the NHK Symphony Orchestra since November 2013 when they performed Verdi’s opera Simon Boccanegra (concert version) under the baton of the late Nello Santi on the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth. This time, the chorus will celebrate the 150th anniversary of Ravel’s birth with the orchestra led by Charles Dutoit who is known as a leading specialist of the composer.