Born in Kyoto on 13 May 1961, Yutaka Sado was during his school days an assistant at Kansai Nikikai, a Japanese opera company of a long tradition. He also worked with the New Japan Philharmonic (of which Seiji Ozawa is the Honorary Artistic Director) and Kyoto Symphony Orchestra in the operatic repertoire. In 1987 he was granted a fellowship at Tanglewood Music Festival and then in Schleswig-Holstein, winning the Davidoff Special Prize. On returning to Japan, he became an assistant to Ozawa when he conducted the subscription concerts. He made his début with the orchestra in their Haydn Symphony Series in Tokyo. He later studied with Charles Dutoit, Gennady Rozhdestvensky and Leonard Bernstein with whom he toured Germany and the USSR.

In 1988 Yutaka Sado won the 1st Prize at the 39th Concours International de Jeunes Chefs d'Orchestre in Besançon, which had become known when Seiji Ozawa became the first Japanese winner, and in 1995 he won the 1st Prize of the Leonard Bernstein Competition in Jerusalem.

In Japan, Sado is Permanent Guest Conductor of the Osaka Century Orchestra and frequently conducts the NHK Orchestra and the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra. Since 1990 he has also been a regular guest of the prestigious Pacific Music Festival of Sapporo founded by Leonard Bernstein, where he is now a resident conductor with Christoph Eschenbach and Michael Tilson Thomas.

Yutaka Sado's career has flourished considerably in the course of the last few years. In France he has held the post of Principal Conductor with the Orchestre des Concerts Lamoureux since October 1993 and has been instrumental in the increasing success of the orchestra in France. In addition to this, he has also been invited to conduct the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio-France and the Orchestre National de France, as well as the orchestras of Lyon, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Monte Carlo and Marseille, among others. Elswhere in Europe, Yutaka Sado has appeared with the Israel Philharmonic, Jerusalem Symphony, Tonhalle Zurich and a number of orchestras in Scandanavia; last season he also made a successful début in Berlin.

This season his engagements outside France include concerts with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and Quebec Symphony Orchestra, and a return to Malmö for two series of concerts. Next season he is scheduled to conduct the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, Flanders Philharmonic Orchestra and the Residency Orchestra of the Hague.

Yutaka Sado has recorded for Naxos with the Orchestre des Concerts Lamoureux - music by Jacques Ibert - to be released in September 1997, and has also just recorded for Erato a Bernstein Disc.