Kazuki Yamada is Conductor music of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO). In addition to his Birmingham engagements, Yamada is also Conductor artistic and musical director of the Orchestre Philharmonique de MonteCarlo (OPMC). Yamada has forged a link between Munich and Birmingham, conducting in collaboration with the CBSO Chorus Mendelssohn'sElijah in both cities in 2019 and Orff's Carmina Burana in 2023. The CBSO Chorus opens the current season with Yamada in both Birmingham and Munich with performances of Verdi's Requiem and Mahler's Symphony No. 2.

Time spent under the close supervision of Seiji Ozawa has served to underscore the importance of what Kazuki Yamada calls his "Japanese feeling" for classical music. Born in 1979 in Kanagawa, Japan, he continues to work and perform in Japan each year with the NHK Symphony Orchestra and the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra. Shortly after taking office in Birmingham, Yamada gave a series of concerts touring Japan with the CBSO in the summer of 2023 and will take the OPMC on tour to Japan in 2024.

Yamada's passionate and collaborative approach to conducting leads him to a busy international schedule of concerts, opera, and choral conducting. The current season begins with his return to the BBC Proms with the CBSO in the summer of 2023, followed by his debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the Tanglewood Festival. He continues to be a regular guest with the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Orchestre National du Duisburg, and Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse and Orchestre National de France. He debuts with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, with Filarmonica della Scala in Oslo, the Orquesta Nacionales de España and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

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

Strongly committed to his role as an educator, he appears annually as a guest artist at the Seiji Ozawa International Academy Switzerland and is heavily involved in the CBSO outreach program. The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on international concert halls has reaffirmed his belief that-in his words-"the audience is no longer able to listen. The audience is always involved in the creation of music. As an orchestra Conductor , I need the audience to be present as much as the musicians."

Yamada studied music at Tokyo University of the Arts, where he discovered a love for Mozart and the Russian Romantic repertoire. He came to international attention after receiving first prize at the 51st Besançon International Competition for Young Conductors in 2009. After living in Japan for most of his life, he now resides in Berlin.

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