In recent years, Japanese conductor Kimbo Ishii’s artistic work has focused mainly on Germany. After serving as principal conductor at the Komische Oper Berlin, he was Music Director at the Theater Magdeburg (2010 to 2019) and Music Director of the Schleswig-Holstein State Theater (2019 to 2022). He has made guest appearances with orchestras such as the Dresden Philharmonic, the Mecklenburg State Orchestra Schwerin, the Oldenburg State Orchestra, the Bochum Symphony and the Kammerakademie Potsdam. At the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, he conducted productions of Prokofiev’s The Fiery Angel and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Le Coq d’Or.

In addition to guest conducting with international orchestras in Europe, North and South America like the Manchester Camerata, the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica, Kimbo Ishii has also been very active in Japan during the last years. He has conducted the NHK Symphony Orchestra, the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony, the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, the Osaka Symphony Orchestra, the Kyoto Symphony Orchestra, the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra, the Sapporo Symphony Orchestra and the Kyushu Symphony Orchestra.

From 1999 to 2007, Kimbo Ishii was Music Director of the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra in Ithaca, New York, and from 2007 to 2012 he held the same position with the Amarillo Symphony Orchestra in Texas, USA. In Japan, he was Principal Guest Conductor of the Osaka Symphony Orchestra from 2009 to 2013.

Kimbo Ishii initially studied violin, among others with Dorothy Delay at the Juilliard School of Music, and then took up conducting studies. While still a conducting student at the Mannes School of Music, he was simultaneously engaged as assistant conductor with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic, working with renowned conductors such as Seiji Ozawa, Sir Simon Rattle, Bernard Haitink and André Previn. In 1995, he won the Nikolai Malko International Conducting Competition in Denmark and in 2010, he received the 9th Hideo Saito Memorial Fund Award in the conducting category.

Other highlights of his career include several NTV concert broadcasts with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra and CD recordings with the Slovak Philharmonic, the Kusatsu Festival Orchestra, and the Magdeburg Philharmonic.

November 2025