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"Without music, life would be a blank to me." - Jane Austen

Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi

Ken-ichiro KOBAYASHI studied composition and conducting at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. In 1974, he received both the first prize and the special award at the first International Conductor’s Competition of Hungarian Television in Budapest.
Presently KOBAYASHI holds positions at the Arnhem Phil. (Permanent Conductor), the Hungarian National Phil. (Conductor Laureate), the Nagoya Phil. (Conductor Laureate), MATAV Hungarian Symphony Orchestra (Principal Guest Conductor), and the Kyushu Symphony (Principal Guest Conductor).
He is also a professor at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music and a guest professor at the Tokyo College of Music.   KOBAYASHI received the Liszt Memorial Decoration, the Hungarian Order of Culture and the “Middle Cross with the Star” decoration from the Hungarian government.
KOBAYASHI has released numerous recordings from Canyon Classics and Octavia Records.
KOBAYASHI received a commission to compose a work in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Holland and Japan in 2000. Its first performance in Amsterdam with the Netherlands Phil. in the fall of 1999 to a sell-out audience received a standing ovation.
In May 2002, he conducted the very successful opening concert of the Prague Spring Festival. He conducted the complete “Ma Vlast” (My Homeland).