CONDUCTOR / CO-FOUNDER
vocalconsort initium
A professional chamber choir founded in 2015. Its first tour of Germany is planned for 2027.
PROFILE
Kota Yanagishima began conducting as a student at Waseda University in Tokyo and moved to Germany in 2011. After a period at the University of Music and Performing Arts Mannheim, he studied conducting at the Hochschule für Musik Saar, working with Georg Grün in choral conducting and Toshiyuki Kamioka in orchestral conducting. Alongside his studies he served as assistant conductor of the conservatory choir and as conductor of the Kirchenchor St. Cäcilia in Ludwigshafen-Oggersheim.
In 2015 he was selected as a fellow of the Dirigentenforum of the German Music Council, the proving ground for young conductors in Germany, and in the same year received the Bach vocal prize from Carus-Verlag. He has since conducted professional choirs throughout Germany, among them the Rundfunkchor Berlin and the NDR Chor, and has completed masterclasses with Morten Schuldt-Jensen (Denmark), Simon Halsey (England), Gijs Leenaars (the Netherlands), Jörg-Peter Weigle (Germany), Michael Gläser (Germany), Stefan Parkman (Sweden) and Josep Vila i Casañas (Catalonia).
He returned to Japan in the autumn of 2017. He is Music Director of the chamber choir vox alius, Conductor and co-founder of vocalconsort initium, Chief Conductor of the Waseda University Mixed Chorus and of the Yokohama Choral Society, Conductor of Chor OBANDES and Chorus Master of the Kodaira Chorus. He appears with period-instrument orchestras in Japan and abroad, including L'orchestre d'avant-garde, the Promusica Baroque Academy and amici musicae Leipzig, and has been guest conductor at the joint choral camp of five universities in Taiwan.
At the heart of his conducting is the idea of a beat that breathes with the singers. He treats conducting not as a set of shapes to be mastered but as a way of sharing a feeling for the music with the people singing it, so that what a choir already has comes forward. His central repertoire is German-language choral music, running from Schütz and Bach through Mendelssohn, Brahms and Reger. A great deal of what he conducts with vocalconsort initium, by contrast, is music from the twentieth century onward — Kagel, Ligeti, Rautavaara, Cardew, Minao Shibata, Jo Kondo. Teaching is a standing part of his work. Since 2019 he has given conducting seminars and choral workshops with Chorus Company, in the Kansai region as well as around Tokyo, and in 2026 he became a contracted lecturer with the company. He also runs a conducting seminar of his own, meeting monthly in and around Tokyo.
CHOIRS
The principal choirs Kota Yanagishima conducts.
MUSIC DIRECTOR
chamber choir vox alius
Founded in 2017; the name is Latin for voice and other. A tenth-anniversary concert in May 2027.
CHIEF CONDUCTOR
Yokohama Choral Society
Formed in 1970, with long-standing ties to Bach and to Germany. In September 2024 it sang at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig.
CHIEF CONDUCTOR
Waseda University Mixed Chorus
Founded in 1948. The choir of Waseda University in Tokyo, with around 70 singers.
CHORUS MASTER
Kodaira Chorus
A community choir of around 150 singers in Kodaira, Tokyo. Performs each year at Rune Kodaira with a community orchestra and soloists.
CONTACT
For enquiries about engagements and lessons, please use the form below.
You may also write directly.
kota (at) yanagishima.de