The , colloquially known as the , is a Japanese orchestra based in

Sapporo is a Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan, designated city in Hokkaido, Japan. Located in the southwest of Hokkaido, it lies within the alluvial fan of the Toyohira River, a tributary of the Ishikari River. Sapporo is the capital ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. The only professional orchestra in

Hokkaido is the list of islands of Japan by area, second-largest island of Japan and comprises the largest and northernmost prefectures of Japan, prefecture, making up its own list of regions of Japan, region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō fr ...

, it performs at the

Sapporo Concert Hall , is a municipal musical venue located in Nakajima Park, Sapporo, established in 1997, the building is owned by Sapporo City, known for having a huge organ built by Alfred Kern & Fils Manufacture D'Orgues in the main music hall. When Simon Rattl ...

History

The orchestra was founded in 1961 as the Sapporo Civic Symphony Orchestra (), with Masao Araya as its first principal conductor, and gave its first subscription concert that same year. The next year, the orchestra renamed itself the Sapporo Symphony Orchestra. Araya served as principal conductor of the orchestra until 1968. In 1975, the orchestra toured the United States and West Germany. In 2007, the orchestra played its 500th subscription concert. In October 2009, the orchestra re-organised itself as a public interest incorporated foundation. The orchestra toured Europe for its 50th anniversary.

Tadaaki Otaka is a Japanese conductor. Biography Otaka was born in Kamakura, Japan on November 8, 1947. He studied composition, theory, and French horn, at the Toho Gakuen School of Music in Chōfu. He was subsequently a conducting student of Hideo Saito ...

was its chief conductor from 1981 to 1986, then music advisor and principal conductor from 1998 to 2004, and finally music director from 2005 to 2015. He is now honorary music director of the orchestra.

Radomil Eliška Radomil Eliška (6 April 1931, Podbořany – 1 September 2019, Prague)Junichi Hirokami is a Japanese conductor. Born in Tokyo, Hirokami studied conducting, piano, musicology, and viola at the Tokyo College of Music. He won the first Kondrashin International Conducting Competition in Amsterdam in September 1984 at age 26. One of ...

. Other former chief conductors have included Max Pommer (2015–2018).

Matthias Bamert Matthias Bamert (born July 5, 1942, in Ersigen, Canton of Bern) is a Swiss conductor and composer. Biography In addition to studies in Switzerland, Bamert studied music in Darmstadt and in Paris, with Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen, an ...

was appointed chief conductor starting in the 2018–2019 season. His initial contract was for three years. A second contract extended his directorship until 2024. Bamert concluded his tenure with the orchestra at the close of the 2023-2024 season. In 2023, the orchestra announced the appointment of Elias Grandy as its next chief conductor, effective April 2025.

Conductors

* (Principal Conductor, 1961–1968) * (Principal Conductor, 1967–1975) *

Hiroyuki Iwaki (6 September 193213 June 2006) was a Japanese conductor and percussionist. Biography Iwaki was born in Tokyo in 1932. Shortly after he entered an elementary school, he moved to Kyoto due to his father's transferral. He came to play the xylop ...

(Principal Conductor, then Music Director, 1975–1987; Conductor Laureate, 1988–2006) *

Kazuyoshi Akiyama was a Japanese conductor who held conducting posts of symphony orchestras in Japan, Canada and the U.S., such as the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra from 1964 for life, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra from 1972 to 1985, the Syracuse Symphony Orche ...

(Music Advisor, later Principal Conductor; 1988–1998) *

(Chief Conductor, 1981–1986; Music Advisor and Principal Conductor, 1998–2004; Music Director, 2005–2015; Honorary Music Director, 2015–present) *

Max Pommer Max Pommer (born 9 February 1936) is a German musicologist and conductor, a director of the Leipziger Universitätschor and the founder and conductor of the Neues Bachisches Collegium Musicum. Career Born in Leipzig, Pommer was a student of ...

(Chief Conductor, 2015–2018) *

(Chief Conductor, 2018–2024) * Elias Grandy (Chief Conductor, 2025–present)

References

External links

Official website of the Sapporo Symphony Orchestra
{{Authority control Japanese orchestras Musical groups established in 1961 Organizations based in Sapporo Musical groups from Hokkaido 1961 establishments in Japan