Kazuki Yamada

Kazuki Yamada is music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO). Alongside his commitments in Birmingham, he is also artistic and music director of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo (OPMC) and will become chief conductor and artistic director of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin starting in the 2026–27 season.

Yamada commands a busy schedule of orchestral, opera, and choral conducting. Recent highlights include an appearance at the BBC Proms and a European tour with the CBSO, a return Tanglewood with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and debut appearances with the Bamberger Symphoniker, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, and Wiener Symphoniker. Yamada also conducted the Monte Carlo Opera in a production of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande.

In addition, Yamada appears regularly with The Cleveland Orchestra, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. He also returns to Japan every season to work with orchestras such as the NHK Symphony Orchestra and Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, among others.

Yamada often performs with distinguished soloists such as Emanuel Ax, Seong-Jin Cho, Isabelle Faust, Alexandre Kantorow, Yunchan Lim, Julian Prégardien, Baiba Skride, Fazıl Say, and Jean-Yves Thibaudet.

Strongly committed to his role as an educator, Yamada appears annually as a guest artist at the Seiji Ozawa International Academy Switzerland and is strongly committed to the CBSO’s outreach program. The impact of the pandemic on international concert halls reaffirmed his belief that — in his words — “The audience is always involved in making the music. As a conductor, I need an audience there as much as the musicians.”

Yamada studied music at Tokyo University of the Arts, where he discovered a love for both Mozart and the Russian Romantic repertory. He achieved international attention upon receiving First Prize in the 51st International Besançon Competition for Young Conductors in 2009. Having lived in Japan for most of his life, Yamada now resides in Berlin.