Artistic Director of Biwako Hall
Principal Conductor & Artistic Adviser of Gunma Symphony Orchestra
Principal Guest Conductor of Japan Century Symphony Orchestra
Musical Director of Tokyo Mozart Players
Born in Tokyo, Numajiri went to the prestigious Toho Gakuen School of Music, where he studied conducting with Seiji Ozawa, Kazuyoshi Akiyama, and Tadaaki Otaka; composition with Akiya Miyoshi; and piano with Satoko Tokumaru and Kazuoki Fujii. He worked as Seiji Ozawa's assistant at the New Japan Philharmonic while still in college. During the same period he played in many performances as the keyboardist for the NHK Symphony Orchestra and the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1989 he travelled to Europe and studied under Hans-Martin Rabenstein at the Berlin University of Fine Arts and Music.
After winning the 40th Besancon International Conducting Competition in 1990, Numajiri's experience steadily increased, and he has been invited to lead many of the world's renowned orchestras including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the Symphony Orchestra of Milan Giuseppe Verdi, the Sydney Symphony, the Toulouse Capital Orchestra, the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Dusseldorf Symphony Orchestra, the Darmstadt National Theatre, the Tullingen Symphony Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Weimar, the Augsburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Northern Sinfonia, the Odense Symphony Orchestra, the Haifa Symphony Orchestra, and the China Philharmonic Orchestra. He has also conducted at the Berlin Music Festival and the Evian Music Festival. He often works with world-class soloists such as Anne-Sophie Mutter, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Zoltan Kocsis, Bruno-Leonardo Gelber, Jean-Philippe Collard, Cyprien Katsaris, Michel Beroff, Tzimon Barto, Rene Kollo, and numerous times with Mstislav Rostropovich. His performance with Rostropovich and the London Philharmonic Orchestra of a work by Sofia Gubaidulina was recorded by EMI.
He made his Japanese debut conducting the NHK Symphony Orchestra in the Concert for Young Pianists, and his work has consistently garnered overwhelming praise as he has gone on to regularly conduct Japan's major orchestras. From 1993 to 1998 he was Chief Conductor of the Japan Shinsei Symphony Orchestra, from 1999 to 2003 Principal Conductor of the Tokyo Philharmonic, from 2003 to 2006 Chief Conductor of the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra, and from 2003 to 2008 Principal Conductor of the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra. He led the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra in an acclaimed tour of five cities in Austria and Germany performing an ambitious program featuring Messiaen's Turangalila-Symphonie. His work with the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra has yielded spectacular artistic results. He has conducted the group in a wide variety of music centered on the late romantics, performing the major pieces of Mahler and Richard Strauss, as well as the Japanese premieres of a symphony by Hans Rott, and an opera of Alexander von Zemlinsky, both of which are rarely heard.
In 1995, Numajiri founded the "Tokyo Mozart Players", basing them at the Mitaka City Arts Center in Tokyo, and he performs with them regularly. They have recently embarked on a project together to record the complete Beethoven symphonies on the Exton label.
He made his opera debut in 1997 with the Abduction from the Seraglio, and his opera career is also looked forward to with great anticipation, as he continues to conduct works both domestically and abroad. Since the opening of Biwako Hall in 1998, he has served as Artistic Director of the Young People's Opera Theater series, for which he also conducts. His opera work has consistently won him enthusiastic praise. As part of the Tokyo Philharmonic Opera Concertante series, in February 2001, he conducted Stravinsky's The Nightingale and the Japanese premiere of Zemlinsky's Der Zwerg, while the following February he conducted the Japanese premiere of Busoni's Doktor Faust. In 2003 he led the Nissay Theatre's Japanese premiere of Berg's complete three-act Lulu, and in 2005 he debuted at Innsbruck's Tiroler Landestheater with Verdi's Don Carlo and at the Cologne Opera House with Krenek's Johnny Spielt. In April 2007 he became the second Artistic Director of the Biwako Opera. He made his debut at the Bayern State Ballet the same year in a celebrated program of John Adams' Chamber Symphony and Gustav Mahler's Song of the Earth, both of which he repeated in July at the Munich Opera Festival. His role as Artistic Director has brought Biwako Hall great success, and the operas he has conducted include Zemlinsky's Der Zwerg, Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier, Puccini's La Boheme directed by Andreas Homoki, Strauss' Salome directed by Karoline Gruber, Puccini's Turandot directed by Jun Aguni, and Wagner's Tristan und Isolde directed by Michael Heinicke.
Numajiri also maintains a deep understanding and knowledge of contemporary music, and he has conducted the Japanese premieres of works by illustrious composers including Ligeti, Lutos?awski, Berio, and Dutilleux. His precise conducting and nuanced interpretations have been highly praised even by the composers themselves as "perfect renderings", and his CD recordings include an album of works by Toru Takemitsu for Denon, and one featuring a selection of pieces by various Japanese composers for Naxos. Since April 2008 he has been Principal Guest Conductor of the Century Orchestra Osaka, and since May 2008 he has been Principal Conductor and Artistic Adviser of the Gunma Symphony Orchestra.
He received the 1st Idemitsu Music Prize in 1991, the 7th Music Award of the Akeo Watanabe Music Foundation in 1999, the 51st Education Minister's Incentive Award for Young Artists from the Agency for Cultural Affairs in 2001, the 3rd Hideo Saito Memorial Fund Award in 2004, the 46th Mainichi Art Award in 2005 and the 23rd Kenzo Nakajima Award in 2005.
