Kazuhiro Nakamura’s Musical Philosophy: From Tuba to Conducting Excellence
- WOMCO
- Apr 8
- 3 min read
Kazuhiro Nakamura was a Diamond Prize Winner in the D4 - Conducting Category, at the 2025 Season 1 World Classical Music Awards
Can you introduce yourself and share how you got into music?
My name is Kazuhiro Nakamura from Kyoto Japan. When I was junior high school, I joined wind band club in the school. Until this moment, I was just having fun with my friends, however, its band director was incredible about teaching every kinds of music, so it was great start for me (us) to play wind band. After graduating high school, I studied playing tuba at Osaka College of Music, also studied a lot of things about music, arranging, rehearsing and conducting. I’m lucky to play many professional group as freelance player, so it means a lot to me to do my job right now.
Could you tell us more about your award-winning work? For instance, how did you prepare it, bring it to life, or any interesting stories behind the scenes?
Actually, this performance was for wind band competition in Japan. There are big wind band competition in every prefecture, and I am conductor of one school at Kyoto. My job is playing tuba, teaching music and conducting. This high school is former private school to advance, but they couldn’t advanced to next round of same competition in a few years. We work so hard to prepare those music and finally we were invited to Area round from prefectural round. More than 12,000 wind band apply to this competition to each prefecture, so this is huge honor to play at Area round in Japan. We were allowed to play only 12 minutes performance for this competition, so I was thinking to put every detail of phrases, balances between instruments, acoustic of concert venue and condition of players. With professional players, of course, there are same situations, however, with high school students who started to play the instruments only a few years is very much challenging to perform precisely. That is tough but I am so happy to work with those students to share/bring joy of music.
What do you believe defines a great conductor, and how do you incorporate your unique style into your music?
Conductor can not make music by his own. So my musical skill to show you is how players can perform it. So knowing every detail of music, tell them correctly what I was asking of thinking, and show them to perform naturally from their hearts, those are my theory of conducting. I’m not deciding how I move or where to look during conducting, but their performances push me over to conduct with this way, so teaching music reflects me about conducting music. With any category of band or orchestra, there is no wall of music and musicality, so I’m eager to incorporate from every kinds of music all over the world from classic to modern music.
Can you recall a memorable moment from your career that had a significant impact on you?
When I was college student, I went to Regina, Canada to join Tuba Conference. That changed my mind about playing and learning tuba to become professional player. After that week, I also went to Chicago to listen to Chicago Symphony Orchestra will premier Tuba Concerto and other pieces. I bought a ticket for another concert of CSO with Charles Dutoit was conductor and program include Petite Suite by Debussy, Pelléas et Mélisande by Faure and Symphony No.5 by Shostakovich. That night changed my mind about orchestra playing, I can say my entire mind of music was changed. It was phenomenal performance of course you know. Also concert include Tuba Concerto was incredible, include Symphonic Dances by Bernstein, Tuba Concerto by Stevens and Symphony No.3 by Copland. That was first time to listen Copland’s Symphony No.3 to me, but I memorized almost entire piece from that performance, like downloading music to laptop. I sang entire symphony from concert hall to hotel while walking. It was fantastic night and moment I realize I’ll become musician.
Would you like to share your experience participating in our competition and anyone you'd like to thank (such as mentors, supporters or other team members)?
This is great award to my teachers from junior high to today. My tuba teachers, Sigeo Takesada teached me fundamentals and skills to perform professionally, Roger Bobo told me how importatnt to be a musician, not instrumentalist.
My Experience with Asian Youth Orchestra and its conductor Richard Pontzious told me how to make rehearsal with persons who have different background.
Without friends, mentors, and family. Their support has been a power of my work, and I wouldn’t be who I am now. So let’s try everything that you can.
