TOKYO — Tokyo, unbeknownst to many in the west, has a long and distinguished history as one of the world’s leading centers for classical music. The Tokyo Philharmonic, just one of eight (!) full-time, full-size, world-class orchestras in the city, is currently in its 114th year. Visits by the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics are annual events, a tradition going back decades. The city has nearly a dozen concert halls capable of hosting full-size symphony orchestras, and, along with Osaka, it boasts some of the few Tower Records stores still left on the planet (there’s one in Dublin) — and they’re huge!. Tokyo also hosts the most important international conducting competition in all of Asia, the only such competition in the region until Hong Kong initiated its own just six years ago.
The Tokyo International Conducting Competition began in 1967 as the Min-On Competition, organized and promoted by the Min-On Concert Association, which still administers the event. The 20th edition of this triennial competition was held Oct. 7-14 in one of the city’s leading concert venues, Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall, a somewhat misleading designation as it is used only for concerts; opera, dance, and theater are given at the adjoining New National Theatre Tokyo. Eighteen competitors were selected from a pool of 291 applications from 37 countries on six continents. More than two-thirds came from Asia. Japan led the pack with 71 applicants, followed by China (40), Korea (29), the U.S. (26), Russia (18), Taiwan (14), and France (10).
Of the 18 chosen to compete, eight were Japanese. The nine-member jury included four of Japan’s most prestigious conductors: chairman Tadaaki Otaka, Junichi Hirokami, Tatsuya Shimono (all former first-prize winners of this competition), and Ken Takaseki, plus conductors from Finland (Okko Kamu) and Holland (Hubert Soudant). Rounding out the jury were Jeff Alexander (president of the Chicago Symphony), Rainer Honeck (a Vienna Philharmonic concertmaster), and Mike George (senior producer for the BBC Philharmonic).
Round 1, spread over two days, consisted of all of the competitors leading the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra in the same repertoire: excerpts from Mozart’s Prague Symphony and an accompanied recitative from The Magic Flute (Tamino and a Priest in the Finale of Act I). Each conductor was allotted 20 minutes on the podium to show what he (or she — four were women) could do in a first rehearsal with a professional orchestra. The range of talent was enormous, from tyros in their early twenties to fully accomplished, experienced leaders in their thirties (the upper age limit to apply was 37).
The best of the lot revealed their talent within just minutes. These included Venezuelan Abner Padrino, Greek Kornilios Michailidis, and Kent Moussault who, despite his very French-sounding name, is perfectly fluent in Japanese as well as in English, German, and Dutch, his mother tongue. Moussault proved to be nearly in a class by himself. Beyond the surprise of addressing the orchestra members in their own language, Moussault, to a degree matched by only one other contestant, brought not just a wealth of personal ideas to his interpretations but also the widest range of expression and an aura of total command. Why he did not advance to the next round is anyone’s guess.
Like Moussault, Michailidis revealed himself to be a leader in total command of his forces, with clearly defined ideas to which the orchestra responded immediately. Also like Moussault, he brought forth a warmer, more refined quality of sound from the orchestra than did most of his colleagues. A no-nonsense yet highly spirited podium manner almost certainly endeared him to the musicians. With a level of efficiency that surely owed something to the Japanese environment, Michailidis made his case in less than the 20 minutes available to him.
Padrino also demonstrated excellent rehearsal technique and distinctive musical ideas but added a degree of charisma reminiscent of a Leonard Bernstein or a Yannick Nézet-Séguin. One could almost feel the electricity coming off the stage as he worked with the orchestra. Nevertheless, the jury, in all its presumed wisdom, found reason to eliminate him.
Of the Japanese contestants, only Tatsuma Takahashi impressed me strongly in Round 1. He avoided the needless gestures common to many of the others and knew exactly what he wanted and how to get it. With boundless energy, he made the accompanied recitative passage from The Magic Flute come alive in a way that demanded the listener pay attention to the orchestra as well as to the singers.
The nine contestants who advanced to Round 2 each appeared in two segments: a 25-minute rehearsal of passages from Schumann’s Fourth Symphony and the first two movements of Bartók’s Dance Suite; and a 15-minute rehearsal of the opening minutes of the Sibelius Violin Concerto.
Several who did not impress me in Round 1 did much better in Round 2. Nikita Sorokin, a Russian living in Paris, was the first contestant to draw a true pianissimo from the orchestra in the misterioso passage leading into the fourth movement of the Schumann symphony. His clear stick technique in the tricky rhythms of the Bartók Dance Suite resulted in spiky, cleanly articulated response from the orchestra, and he was one of the few to work on balance issues. Riley Court-Wood, from the U.K., also did far better in Round 2. He focused on mood and character. For the beginning of the second movement of in the Bartók, he asked the trombones to create the effect of having drunk too much sake, to which they enthusiastically responded.
But the biggest surprise in Round 2 came from Erika Kiko. She brought to Bartók a Solti-like ferocity that truly astounded and to Schumann a powerful drive, massive sound, and dark quality that suggested a Wagnerian apocalypse. It was individualistic and totally persuasive, but more Kiko than Schumann, which was probably why she did not advance to the final round. Michailidis sustained the high standard he had established in Round 1, maintaining total control and working with exemplary efficiency, a quality that endears conductors to orchestral musicians. The masterful way he shaped the transition to the final movement of the Schumann symphony — the slow, inexorable growth from pianissimo mystery to fortissimo exuberance — was unique in Round 2.
Understandably, Court-Wood and Michailidis made the cut to the final round. So did two Japanese, Ayano Yoshizaki and Hiroki Okazaki. For this round, the four contestants faced a different orchestra, the New Japan Philharmonic. After a day of rest, each had two one-hour closed rehearsals with the orchestra (no audience) and on the following day an actual performance of a work or portion thereof lasting about 25 minutes. Finalists were also required to conduct Dai Fujikura’s Glorious Clouds, composed in 2008 and inspired by the behavior of bacteria. At 18 minutes, the piece outstayed its welcome, but both Court-Wood and Michailidis generated interest through very different approaches — the former with spiky angularity, the latter with a far more lyrical approach. Both worked.
The four finalists divided into a pair of Japanese of moderate ability and a pair of foreigners, both of whom were eminently worthy of first prize. In the end, the jury chose Michailidis for the 2,000,000 yen (about US$13,400) First Prize for his searing performance of the third and fourth movements of Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony and Court-Wood for Second Prize (1,000,000 yen) for his rendition of the first and last movements of Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony, a fiery interpretation that vividly recalled Charles Munch’s recording of the work more than 60 years earlier.
Yoshizaki won Third Prize (500,000 yen), and Okazaki Honorable Mention (150,000 yen). Court-Wood won in addition the 1,000,000-yen Audience Prize, Michailidis the Orchestra Prize from the New Japan Philharmonic, and Yoshizaki the Hideo Saito Award. Asked how he felt about his success, Michailidis admitted that he had long resisted becoming a conductor as his older brother is also one, and he didn’t want to compete, so coming this far in a major competition has left him in a state of near disbelief. Court-Wood called the whole experience in Tokyo “surreal. This was my first competition, my first time conducting the Scottish Symphony, and my first time conducting a score from memory” (the only finalist to do so). “I fully expected to be knocked out in the first round.”
How did the contestants respond to leading two different, highly professional orchestras just days apart? Michailidis noted that each definitely had its own characteristic qualities, but they were hard to define. Court-Wood discovered that the Tokyo Philharmonic had a more Germanic sound and that it tended to attack behind the beat, while the New Japan Philharmonic was the more agile of the two and attacked closer to the beat, which required adjustment on his part. Court-Wood also learned that several other conductors felt the same way.
Asked about the experience of playing the same pieces nine times in short succession, Tokyo Philharmonic concertmaster Akihiro Miura answered in one word: “tiring.” Each session lasted about four hours, with three short intermissions — comparable to a full-length, four-act opera each day. But Miura added that all nine conductors brought good chemistry to their brief time with the orchestra, were easy to work with, and conveyed their wishes clearly. What does Miura look for in a good conductor? “Beyond technical skill, which all nine contestants had in abundance,” he noted, “it’s the energy a conductor brings to the music, the ability to impart a spiritual quality that makes the music into something more than notes and into something truly exciting.”
The Tokyo Philharmonic proved itself to be an ideal platform for the conductors to work with. Observing how it responded to each was an education in itself. “What impressed me about the TPO,” said Michailidis, “was the very high level of preparedness. Compared with orchestras I have worked with in Europe, sound, balance, and rhythmic precision were all there right from the start, and the musicians responded quickly to whatever I asked of them.” What Moussault especially liked was the orchestra’s openness to his ideas and suggestions. “They were totally willing to do whatever I asked of them,” he said. “They’re not set in their ways. They’re like theater actors, changing masks as needed.”
Finalists had the luxury of having worked with two of Japan’s top orchestras. Both orchestras lived up to their reputations, maintaining the highest professional standards for every conductor regardless of his or her ability, showing not the slightest sign of fatigue at the end of each long afternoon. Special mention must also go to tenor Ryoichi Nakai, who sang the Mozart recitative 18 times in the first round with exceptional fervor, sensitivity, and expressiveness, as beautifully and eloquently the 18th time as the first.
The Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall proved to be ideal as a venue for a competition of this nature. The hall has exceptional clarity, which reveals whatever a conductor asks of an orchestra, but also an uncommonly bright sound lacking in warmth, which can be a tricky combination to manage. Woe to the conductor who does not know how to control his forces, and several failed in this respect.
Virtually everyone I talked with — jury members, contestants, other journalists — voiced high praise for how well the competition had been organized and how smoothly everything went. But that’s part of Japanese culture. Preparation is everything, and they spend countless hours ensuring that nothing is left to chance. “Is there anywhere on earth, at any time ever, where one can find a better-organized competition than this one?” asked veteran conductor Okko Kamu. “And where else can contestants in a conducting competition get two great orchestras to work with?”
Jury member Jeff Alexander was particularly lavish in his endorsement for the educational component of the competition. Every contestant, including the top-prize winners, had one-on-one consultations with each jury member for feedback after each round, plus advice for a successful future in this fiercely competitive world. It would be hard to imagine Michailidis or Court-Wood failing to find a successful future.
