Music Director & Conductor

Kimbo Ishii-Eto is the Music Director & Conductor of the Amarillo Symphony, kicking off his first full season in residence with the 2008-09 season.

Previously, Ishii-Eto was Music Director of the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra and Resident Conductor (Kapellmeister) with the Komische Oper Berlin. He recently finished his duties there after conducting performances of Rigoletto, Turandot, Fidelio, The Magic Flute, The Bartered Bride, The Barber of Seville, The Golden Cock, Die Fledermaus, The Marriage of Figaro and two Zemlinsky operas (Der Zwerg and The Florentinische Tragedy), in addition to conducting the Komische Oper Berlin’s coveted orchestra concerts. Ishii-Eto recently conducted the premier production of The Tales of Hoffmann, which became the best-selling production in the Komische Oper Berlin’s history.

In the summer of 2008, Ishii-Eto made his opera debut in Japan, conducting The Marriage of Figaro at the Biwako Opera House in Shiga.

Born in Taiwan, Ishii-Eto regularly performs in Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

Ishii-Eto appears frequently as a guest conductor with the NHK Symphony Orchestra, the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, the China Broadcast Symphony, the National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica and the Kammerakademie Potsdam (Germany). He also has conducted the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, the Manchester Camerata (England), the Silesian Philharmonic (Poland), the Bochum Symphony (Germany), the Sønderjylland Symphony Orchestra (Denmark), Orchestra Philharmonikade (Lima, Peru), and Shanghai Symphony.  His festival activities include conducting at the Kusatsu International Music Festival in Japan, a guest faculty appointment at the C.W. Post Chamber Music Festival (1996-99), and two Conducting Fellowships at the Tanglewood Music Festival. For several seasons, he was a Cover Conductor with both the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic before joining the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra as Music Director.

Ishii-Eto’s most recent debut appearances include the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, the Sapporo Symphony Orchestra, the Deutsche Kammerorchestra (Berlin), and at the Skaneateles Festival. Other career highlights include several NTV concert broadcasts with the Yomiuri Japan Symphony Orchestra, and his recording debut conducting the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra.

Ishii-Eto’s internationally renowned conducting teachers and coaches include Sir Simon Rattle, Seiji Ozawa, Gustav Meier, Leonard Slatkin, David Zinman, Michael Charry, Max Rudolf and Chosei Komatsu. He received his master’s degree in Conducting from the Mannes College of Music and was awarded the George & Elizabeth Gregory Award for Performance Excellence. He was a prizewinner in Denmark’s (1995) Nikolai Malko International Conducting Competition.  Ishii-Eto studied violin at the State Conservatory in Vienna after years of training in Japan and continued his violin studies with Dorothy DeLay and Hyo Kang at the Juilliard School.