Conductor Chosei Komatsu is enjoying a widespread international career spanning four continents.  Praised by press reviewers and audiences alike, Maestro “Komatsu seems truly called to the conducting profession.” (The Buffalo News).  He is currently Principal Conductor of the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra.
 
He is active in opera, as well, having conducted such operas as Aida, Madama Butterfly, La Traviata, and La Bohème.  He is the newly appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the Lviv State Opera in Ukraine.
 
He made his Japanese début conducting Tchaikovsky’s Symphony #5 with the Tokyo Philharmonic in 1990, to high acclaim.  “It was such a deep performance that it penetrated one’s soul.” (Mainichi Newspaper, Tokyo)  Since then, Mr. Komatsu has frequently conducted most of the leading orchestras of Japan.  His July 1995 concert with Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony in Suntory Hall was named one of the top nine concerts of the year by the Associated Press of Japan (Kyodo)
 
Mr. Komatsu has appeared with some of the finest orchestras of Europe, including the Kölner Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester, Prague Radio Symphony, and at the Salzburg Festival.  He first traveled to Moscow in 1992 when, at the invitation of the United Nations Association of Russia, he conducted the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra in an opera gala concert in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses for an audience of more than 5,000.  Returning to Russia in 1995, his performance of Rachmaninoff’s Symphony #2 with the Moscow Radio Symphony was so enthusiastically received by the Russian audience that he was called back to the stage eight times.  His most recent performance in Russia was in April 1999, when he conducted the St. Petersburg Symphony.
 
Chosei Komatsu was the Music Director of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony and Canadian Chamber Ensemble from 1993-1999.  His performances with the KWS and CCE have been broadcast throughout Canada many times each year over the CBC radio network.  He has also appeared as guest conductor with many of the leading Canadian orchestras, making his début with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal in December 1996.  Prior to his move to Canada he held conducting posts for six years in the U.S., with the Baltimore Symphony and Buffalo Philharmonic orchestras.
 
Mr. Komatsu’s most recent recording with the Moscow Radio Symphony and pianist Ikuyo Kamiya was released in May 2001.  He has also recorded for the Columbia, BMG-Victor, EMI and CBC labels, with the Japan Philharmonic, Canadian Chamber Ensemble, and Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony.  
 
A native of Japan, Chosei Komatsu earned a Bachelor of Literature degree in aesthetics from Tokyo University and a doctorate in orchestral conducting from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York.  He was awarded the Leonard Bernstein Conducting Fellowship at the Schleswig-Holstein Festival in Germany and the Aspen Festival Conducting Fellowship in the United States.  His primary conducting teachers have been David Zinman, David Effron, Donald Neuen, and Eiicho Ito, and he has taken further studies with Kurt Masur, Max Rudolf, and Leonard Bernstein.