CAIRO The Japanese people are facing a lot of challenges now because of earthquakes, a tsunami and a nuclear accident on March 11, resulting in the cancellation of many concerts there. Japanese Maestro Hirofumi Yoshida regrets this, as he believes that people need music to give them the strength to overcome this crisis. Egyptians have also been facing a lot of challenges since the January 25 revolution and Yoshida, visiting Egypt, has a message for them. “I would like the Egyptian people who listen to our music to feel moved and to have hope and courage for their future,” he says. On Saturday night, Yoshida, the Music Director of Mantua Opera (Italy), conducted the Cairo Symphony Orchestra's opening performance of the new season in the Main Hall of the Cairo Opera House. The concert's programme was from Russian composer Tchaikovsky's works ‘Italian Capriccio' and ‘Overture 1812', as well as Beethoven's ‘Symphony No. 5'. “I personally don't think that the current situation in Egypt is so dangerous, but there are some administrative difficulties. For example, the procedures for organising the programmes for the Cairo Symphony Orchestra have been slow. “However, the orchestra and I have now started rehearsals and we can concentrate purely on music, in order to produce something beautiful,” he told The Egyptian Gazette in an interview. Yoshida became especially interested in the Egyptian revolution after visiting the Venice Biennale for modern art some months ago. There was a pavilion for each country, and the Egyptian pavilion was dedicated to one of the revolutionary martyrs. “I saw a lot of photos and messages, and I was especially touched by a poem which the martyr wrote on his page on Facebook. The poem calls for Egyptian people to stand up and topple the regime. “I was overwhelmed by the poem's power and beauty. Unfortunately, I heard that the writer was killed by the police during the revolution,” he said, sadly. One of the leading conductors of his generation, Yoshida is constantly in demand, regularly conducting major operas and orchestras. His family has a lot of the records of American musicals like ‘Sound of Music', ‘Carousel' and ‘West Side Story', which made him fall in love with music. When he was 18 years old, he attended a concert conducted by Maestro Seiji Ozawa, a world-famous Japanese conductor, particularly noted for his interpretations of large-scale late Romantic works, who at that time worked as Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It was a concert given in Japan by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He was so moved that he decided there and then that he wanted to be a conductor too. Yoshida earned his Bachelor's degree at the Tokyo College of Music, Conducting Department. From 1994 to 1995, he studied conducting with Hans Graf and Julius Kalmar at the Vienna National University of Music, and was awarded a Master's Diploma. In 1996, he did another Master's course under Myung-Whun Chung and Juri Temirkanov at the Chigiana Musical Academy in Sienna. In August of the same year, he became a laureate at the 19th Master Players International Conducting Competition in Valsolda, Italy. From 1994 to 1999, he was the assistant conductor mainly for the Nikikai Opera, and was involved in masterpieces by Mozart such as ‘The Magic Flute', ‘Le Nozze di Figaro' and ‘Cosi fan Tutte'. In 1999, he was chosen as one of the trainees to study abroad by the Japan Agency for Cultural Affairs, and moved to Europe where he studied at the Bayern National Opera Theatre, Mannheim National Theatre, and the Malmo Opera Theatre (Sweden). In Mannheim and Bayern, he participated in many operas as an assistant to Maestro Jun Markl. In 2001, he was chosen as the preliminary Asian nominee for the Maazel/Vilar Conductor's Competition. In 2002, Yoshida was awarded the Most Promising Young Talent Prize in the Opera Division of the Gotoh Memorial Cultural Award. He was the first conductor in history to receive the award, which prompted him do further studies in Rome. Italian newspapers often write about him, describing him as the ‘Maestro from the Land of Rising Sun'. In 2003, he earned a scholarship from the Rome Music Foundation, and, as a special research trainee, he has been studying at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma. In May 2005, he conducted ‘Cavalleria Rusticana' and ‘Rigoletto' with the ensemble members of the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, making his debut in Italy. In 2005, he won third prize in the First International Opera Conducting Competition in Memoriam Bela Bartok in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. After that, he made his debut with the Transylvania Symphony Orchestra in Romania and performed with the Budapest Concert Orchestra (MAV Szimfonikus Zenekar). He performed with the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra in the Gala Concert of the 15th Anniversary of the Gotoh Memorial Cultural Foundation. In 2006, Yoshida participated in concerts such as the Nippon television programme ‘Midnight Concert' with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra. In April that year, he conducted ‘Serata Nijinsky-Balanchin' at the Teatro Verdi in Trieste with the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma's Ballet company. In 2007, Yoshida performed ‘Aida' at the Cairo Opera House and Leoncavallo's opera ‘Pagliacci' at Terme di Caracalla, during the summer season of Teatro dell' Opera di Roma in August. In the 2008 season, he conducted ‘La Traviata' in Paris, ‘Le Nozze di Figaro' in Japan, ‘Madam Butterfly' in Cairo and ‘Don Carlos' in Hong Kong. “As ‘Aida' was written by Verdi in tribute to Cairo and its first performance was also in the Egyptian capital, I felt very honoured to be able to perform it here. I also visited the Pyramids which are described in the opera. “As a musician, I have benefited greatly from this experience,” said Yoshida, who is a designated associate professor at the Toho College of Music and master at the graduate school. In 2009, he was due to perform Beethoven's ‘Symphony No. 5' at the Cairo Opera House, but, when he landed at Cairo International Airport, he was informed that the concert had been cancelled, unfortunately, because of the death of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak's grandson. Yoshida is fond of Egyptian music. He loves listening to it on television and the video-sharing website Youtube. “In Japan, a lot of people learn Egyptian bellydancing. I believe that such dancing must be accompanied by Egyptian music, which is interesting, exciting and endless,” he said. He is fond of the Arab music too. “I have a close friend, Wisam Gharby, who is Tunisian. He once invited me to his home in Tunis, where they held a welcoming party for me, which included a small orchestra for Arab music, who performed beautifully.” Yoshida currently lives in Rome. Last year, he was appointed the Music Director of the Mantua Opera.
