The New National Theatre, Tokyo is pleased to announce that SATO Masahiro is appointed as the next Director of the NNT Opera Studio. He will assume office on 1 April, 2023.

SATO Masahiro

SATO Masahiro graduated from the Tokyo University of the Arts, vocal music department and completed the master course of piano accompaniment at the Juilliard School. After working as an exclusive pianist at the San Francisco Opera, he became the chief korrepetitor of Opéra de Lyon at the invitation of Kent Nagano in 1995. He also worked as an assistant to Myung-Whun Chung and Valery Gergiev at Théâtre du Châtelet and Wiener Festwochen, among others. In 1999, he made his conductor debut conducting Idomeneo at the Dartington Music Summer Festival. The next year, he conducted Ariadne auf Naxos at the same festival and he made his Japan debut conducting the NNTT's pit opera Orfeo ed Euridice.

To date, he has conducted the Educational Programme for High School Students Tosca at the NNTT, Un ballo in maschera and La Traviata at the Fujiwara Opera, Japan premiere of French version of Don Carlos, L'Enfant prodigue, Djamileh, La Voix humaine and L'Arlésienne at the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre, among others. He has also conducted Japanese operas like Byacco which received Sagawa Yoshio Music Award and Toi Ho (Distant Sail) composed by Miyoshi Akira. He has also led many orchestras including the Yomiuri Nioppon Symphony Orchestra and Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra and worked as a accompanist for vocal concerts and recordings.

Currently he is the Music Director of Kobe City Chorus, the Principal Conductor of Keio University Wagner Male Chorus, a lecturer at the Tokyo University of the Arts, and a project associate professor at the Musashino Academia Musicae.