Symphonic Mob – play along the DSO

Kazuki Yamada will assume the position of Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (DSO) at the start of the 2026/2027 season. He has served as Music Director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) since April 2023 and has held the position of Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo (OPMC) since 2016.

Born in 1979 in Kanagawa, Japan, Yamada maintains a strong connection to his homeland and brings a distinctly “Japanese sensibility” to classical music. He works regularly with the NHK Symphony Orchestra, the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra and the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra. He regularly tours Japan with the orchestras from Birmingham and Monte Carlo, most recently with the CBSO in summer 2025.

Yamada is a highly sought-after guest conductor in the realms of symphonic, operatic, and choral music. He made a celebrated debut with the DSO in April 2024 and returned to open the 2024/2025 season, stepping in for the late Sir Andrew Davis. In the same season, he appeared for the fourth consecutive time with the CBSO at the BBC Proms. Further debuts include performances with the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Filarmonica della Scala and the Wiener Symphoniker. In 2026, he will make his first appearances with the Bamberger Symphoniker and the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra. In the United States, he has conducted the Cleveland Orchestra, following earlier engagements with the Chicago and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony and New York Philharmonic.

He also appears regularly with ensembles such as the Oslo Philharmonic, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Orchestre National de France and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. At the Opéra de Monte-Carlo, he has conducted Ravel’s ‘L’enfant et les sortilèges’ and ‘L’heure espagnole’, and returned in 2026 for Debussy’s ‘Pelléas et Mélisande’.

Yamada collaborates with renowned soloists including Emanuel Ax, Leif Ove Andsnes, Seong-Jin Cho, Isabelle Faust, Martin Helmchen, Nobuko Imai, Lucas and Arthur Jussen, Alexandre Kantorow, Evgeny Kissin, Maria João Pires, Julian Prégardien, Baiba Skride, Fazıl Say, Arabella Steinbacher, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Krystian Zimerman, and Frank Peter Zimmermann.

A passionate advocate for the next generation of musicians, Yamada is a regular guest conductor at the Seiji Ozawa International Academy Switzerland and actively supports the CBSO’s education and development programs.

He studied at the Tokyo University of the Arts, where he discovered his deep affinity for Mozart and the Russian Romantic repertoire. He gained international recognition in 2009 when he won First Prize at the 51^st Besançon International Competition for Young Conductors. After spending most of his life in Japan, he has resided in Berlin since 2010.

For more information kdschmid.de/en

For more than 70 years the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (DSO Berlin) has distinguished itself as one of Germany's leading orchestras. The number of renowned music directors, the scope and variety of its work, and its particular emphasis on modern and contemporary music, makes the ensemble unique. Founded as the RIAS Symphony Orchestra in 1946, it was renamed the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin in 1956 and has borne its current name since 1993.

At the beginning of the 2017-18 season Robin Ticciati took on the position as music director, carrying on a great tradition. As the first music director, Ferenc Fricsay defined the standards in terms of repertoire, acoustic ideal and media presence. In 1964, the young Lorin Maazel assumed artistic responsibility. In 1982, he was followed by Riccardo Chailly and in 1989 by Vladimir Askenazy. Kent Nagano was appointed music director in 2000. Since his departure in 2006, he has been associated with the orchestra as an honorary conductor.

From 2007 to 2010, as the successor to Nagano, Ingo Metzmacher set decisive accents in the concert life of the capital with progressive programmes and consistent commitment to the music of the 20th and 21st centuries. Since September 2012, the North Ossetian Tugan Sokhiev has been music director of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin.

Apart from its concerts in Berlin, the DSO is also present in many guest appearances in international music life. The orchestra has held performances in the major concert halls of Europe, North and South America, the Near, Middle and Far East. The DSO is also in demand worldwide with many award-winning CD recordings. In 2011, it was awarded a Grammy Award for the best opera recording for the production of Kaija Saariaho's ›L'amour de loin‹ conducted by Kent Nagano. In September 2017 the first CD of the DSO and Robin Ticciati has been released on the Linn Records label.

The Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin is an ensemble of the Radio Orchestra and Choirs GmbH (roc berlin). The shareholders are Deutschlandradio, the Federal Republic of Germany, the State of Berlin and Radio Berlin-Brandenburg.