Artistic Director - Joji Hattori

"When Etienne first expressed his idea of bringing chamber music to the small village of Lauenen during the winter season, to be performed in an intimate chapel in the mountains, I immediately loved the idea.

"Chamber music is the highest form of expression and communication in the field of classical music and yet the environment of loud cities combined with our very busy lifestyles cannot create the right atmosphere for appreciating it.

"With these concerts our aim is to bring together a small number of top international chamber musicians to perform in Lauenen's cosy chapel to an audience whose sensitivity for absorbing beautiful music will be enhanced by the natural beauty of the surroundings. I very much hope that support for this altruistic project can be continued well into the future."

Biography :    www.jojihattori.com

Joji Hattori has just been appointed Principal Resident Conductor of the opera house in Erfurt, Germany, starting in August 2007, where he will conduct three premieres next season. He has also been Associate Conductor of the Vienna Chamber Orchestra since 2004. In Japan he serves as Music Director of the Tokyo Ensemble, a chamber orchestra which he founded in 2001. He was born in Tokyo but spent most of his childhood in Vienna. Influenced by both cultures and with a strong background in chamber music, Hattori is today one of the very few conductors of Asian heritage who is respected internationally and in Vienna for his interpretation of the Viennese Classics.

He started playing the violin at the age of five and studied at the Vienna Academy of Music. In 1989 he won the International Yehudi Menuhin Violin Competition. After a decade of international activities as a violin soloist, he turned to conducting and in 2002 participated at the inaugural Maazel-Vilar Conductor’s Competition where he was given a major award. Lorin Maazel enabled him to give his conducting debut at New York’s Carnegie Hall and continues to support his career.

As Guest Conductor, Joji Hattori has worked with many distinguished orchestras such as the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia London, Orchestre National de Lille, the BBC Concert Orchestra, Slovakian Philharmonic or the Yomiuri Symphony Orchestra Japan, and has collaborated with soloists including Maria Joao Pires, Piotr Anderszewski, Elisabeth Leonskaja and Elena Bashkirova. His opera debut (2004) at the Vienna Kammeroper with Mozart’s La Finta Giardiniera was praised unanimously by major newspapers in Vienna and following a successful Japan premiere of Leoncavallo’s Zaza at the New National Theatre in Tokyo, he was invited to conduct Mozart’s Magic Flute there in January 2006.

Joji Hattori has recorded many CDs for BMG, is Chairman of the Menuhin Competition and holds a position as visiting professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London where he presently resides. He also pursues his non-musical interests in sociology as a senior member of St Antony College in Oxford.