After winning the Special Davidoff Music Prize in Germany in 1988 Yutaka Sado then assisted Leonard Bernstein on a tour throughout Germany and the USSR.  His international career started in 1989 when he won the Premier Grand Prix of the 39th International Conductor's Competition in Besançon.  In 1995 Yutaka won the International Leonard Bernstein Competition in Jerusalem

Born in Kyoto in 1961, Yutaka Sado graduated from Kyoto Municipal Horikawa Senior High School and the Kyoto City University of Arts. He also held the position of assistant with the principal Japanese opera company. In 1987 he started working with Seiji Ozawa and Leonard Bernstein in the USA. He then became Seiji Ozawa's assistant with the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra with whom he made his debut in Tokyo, conducting a series of Haydn symphonies.

He is also a regular guest of the Orchestre National de France and the Orchestre de Paris.

Yutada Sado has released a number of CDs, including two recordings with the Orchestre des Concerts Lamoureux, one with music by Jacques Ibert for Naxos and the other of Ravel and Chabrier for Erato.  Yutaka Sado has now made two exclusive recordings for Erato with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Radio France, the first devoted to French works (by Dukas, Bizet and Offenbach), and the second to the works of Leonard Bernstein.  The Bernstein CD contains the Kaddish and Chichester Psalms, featuring the soprano Karita Mattila and Lord Yehudi Menuhin as the narrator.  In the pipeline is a Berlioz / Liszt / Wagner CD with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and an operatic recording with Karita Mattila and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.