The First Prize-winner at the prestigious Georg Solti International Conductors’ Competition in Frankfurt, Principal Guest Conductor of the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre, Shizuo Z Kuwahara will take part in the VII International Mariinsky Far East Festival, Vladivostok.
On August 10, 2022, the maestro will stand for the conductor’s console of the Mariinsky Orchestra of the Primorsky Stage and conduct the famous tragic opera Madama Butterfly by the great verist Giacomo Puccini, which opera is a recent premiere of the Primorsky Stage. On August 12, 2022, the maestro Kuwahara will hold the baton and conduct the famous opera Pagliacci by the Italian composer Ruggero Leoncavallo originally staged and designed by Marat Gatsalov, a recipient of the Golden Mask theatre prize. Both nights the audience will enjoy the voices of soloists of the Mariinsky Theatre and the Primorsky Stage.
Shizuo Z Kuwahara is a prize-winner at many prestigious international competitions. His conducting career ascended rapidly after his win at the Solti Competition followed by conducting invitations from Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchesters Saarbrücken, Polish Chamber Orchestra, Nice Philharmonic, and Frankfurt Museumsorchester. In 2018, with the invitation from Valery Gergiev, Shizuo Z Kuwahara made a sensational debut with the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre with the production of Verdi’s La traviata. Later he became a guest conductor of the Primorsky Stage. Shizuo Z Kuwahara has led performances throughout North & South America, Europe, and Asia. He has collaborated with the Philadelphia Orchestra as a League of American Orchestras conducting fellow and appeared at the Pacific Music Festival.
The maestro is a recipient of Georg Solti Foundation Award, Augusta Region’s Top Ten in Ten Young Professionals Award, and 2011 S&R Washington Award. In 2022 he was awarded the American Prize in “Conducting Opera” category at the most large-scale American set of national competitions in the performing arts established in 2010.
