KenshoWatanabe

Press

• Madame Butterfly, Detroit Opera

  Detroit Opera

  Oct 2023

  • The musical direction of this production is sensational. Conductor Kensho Watanabe masterfully leads the orchestra and cast, delivering every shining moment in Puccini’s score

    • Encore Michigan
    • 09 October 2023

• Mozart, Alma Mahler & Gustav Mahler with Scottish Chamber Orchestra

  Usher Hall, Edinurgh & City Halls, Glasgow

  Jan 2020

  • Kensho Watanabe impressed last March when he took charge of the RSNO’s Carmina Burana, and his facility with big music was on display again here with one of the largest SCO’s line-ups (including four flutes and four percussionists) playing Gustav Mahler’s 4th Symphony... Watanabe’s was a reading that contrived to be both stately and full of vim, culminating in Cargill singing The Heavenly Life from the choir stalls.

    • The Herald
    • 03 February 2020

  • [Kensho's] Mahler Fourth sounded – unsurprisingly – gloriously nimble and buoyant under a chamber orchestra, and his characterisations were masterful, especially in the raw, devilish scherzo, high on grotesquerie.

    • The Scotsman
    • 31 January 2020

• Rhode Island Philharmonic

  Veterans Memorial Auditorium, Rhode Island

  Nov 2020

  • Watanabe had clearly bonded with the musicians on stage and led the ensemble with an elegant lyricism punctuated by energy and drive, directed always toward the musical line and devoid of any pretension or unnecessary affect. Here again, Watanabe, utilizing 17 string players, delivered a warm and lyric reading that captured the rustic charm and simplicity of the Czech villages from which the music came, filled with rushing streams, lively folk dances and tender melodies evoking the scenic beauty of surrounding landscapes.

    • The Providence Journal
    • 14 November 2020