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| | Imamura Chikara | | direttore d'orchestra |  
| Chikara Imamura, conductor of opera and concerts, was born in Osaka, Japan, in 1954 and completed a multi-faceted musical education in piano, voice, and composition. In 1972 he began to study conducting with Masamitsu Takahashi at the Kunitachi College of Music in Tokyo. In 1976, he transferred to the Tohogakuen College of Music where he studied with renowned teachers such as the Japanese star conductor Seiji Ozawa and Professor Franco Ferrara. During this period, he conducted his first operas and concerts of the orchestra of the Tohogakuen College of Music and Tokyo Radio Chorus. Moreover, from 1976 through 1978, he held the position of choral conductor of the Tokyo Academic Chorus and Jeunesses Musicales of Japan. |
| Having received third place at the Herbert von Karajan conducting competition in Japan in 1977, Imamura came one year later to Europe, participating in the Orchestra Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic from 1978 to 1981. In 1978 and 1979, he also attended master classes with Milan Horvat and Dieter Gerhard Worm at the Salzburg Summer Academy, where he conducted the concluding concert in 1979. These activities resulted in close artistic ties to the 12 Cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic; he was their assistant conductor for the 1980/81 season and worked on Telefunken CD recordings with them. Chikara Imamura was awarded many prizes in a number of prestigious competitions. In 1983, he was finalist at the Grzegorz Fitelberg Competition in Kattowice, Poland, and in 1980, he was finalist at the Guido Cantelli Conducting Competition in Milan. In past years, Imamura has also served as judge at numerous competitions. Since 1995, he has also been teaching orchestral and choral conducting at the Kunitachi College of Music in Tokyo. |
| Chikara Imamura has conducted all of the distinguished Japanese orchestras, including the NHK Symphony Orchestra, Jeunesses Musicales Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, New Japan Philharmonic, Osaka Philharmonic, Kyoto Symphony, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, and the Sendai Philharmonic Orchestra. He has served as guest conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra, Orchestra Filharmonico della Scala, Milan Radio Orchestra, Sinfonia Varsovia, the Symphony Orchestras of Cracow, Gdansk and Poznan, Danish Radio Orchestra, and Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra. With these and other orchestras, this conductor has made numerous recordings as well as live broadcasts for various radio and television stations including NHK, TV Asahi, and NTV Japan. |
| In operas and concerts, Imamura has collaborated with a number of distinguished soloists including Sheila Armstrong, John Shirley-Quirk, Yuzuko Horigome, Karl-Hermann Mrongovius, Patrick Gallois, Michala Petri, Peter Damm, and Christian Lindberg. From 1990 to 1996 he was principal conductor of the Tokyo Harmonia Chamber Orchestra. A particular highlight of his career was conducting the "Hiroshima Peace Concert" in the summer of 1989, the annual memorial concert for the victims of the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima in 1945. His recent projects included a tour with Puccini's Madama Butterfly to the Netherlands, followed by performances of the same work at the Warsaw State Opera. |
| Imamura has a special musical and emotional affinity for the literature of the German and Austrian classical and romantic periods; in particular, the great symphonic works of Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms make up the focus of his programs. He has also conducted a number of works by Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss, both in Japan and Europe. An additional focus of his artistic work is contemporary music. He conducted the world premieres of many works, some of which were dedicated to him. Among them are: Signals from Heaven by Toru Takemitsu (1987), Hiroshima Requiem by Toshio Hosokawa, Mana by Akira Nishimura (1989), and Nocturne by Anthony Plog (1996). Also, he has conducted the Japanese first performances of works by well-known European composers such as Othmar Schoeck, Arvo Pärt, Klaus Huber and Oliver Knussen. |
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