World Class Oboe Playing in Tokyo

In a day full of highlights, Ángel Luis Sánchez Moreno, guest principal of the SWR Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart and Freiburg, won First Prize at the 2023 international Oboe Competition of Japan. Outstanding musicianship, great lyricism, and a warm, beautiful tone easily made him the star of the day.

All Finalists had to perform Mozart's Oboe Quartet K.370 as well as the Oboe Concerto by Richard Strauss on the same day- a demanding task for the young performers.

Fifteen young oboists had been selected from the online First Round and were invited to perform at Tokyo/Musashino Civic Cultural Hall. Among those, six players advanced to the Final Round, which was held with Japanese string players (Fumika Mohri, Ayako Tahara and Yuko Mizuno) and with the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra under Kazufumi Yamashita.

“THE INTERNATIONAL OBOE COMPETITION OF JAPAN” began with an idea by the former chairman of the Sony Music Foundation, Norio Ohga (1930–2011), who was intrigued by the innocent and comforting sound of the oboe and advocated its importance as the instrument that could determine the quality of an entire orchestra. The Sony Music Foundation has been presenting the Competition every three years since 1985. The 13th Competition had been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic for several years.
It aims to promote the true artistic value of the oboe, as well as to contribute to the development of music culture with an international perspective through discovering and fostering talented musicians and helping them expand their scope of activities in Japan and abroad. It has established a reputation as a unique international Competition solely dedicated to the oboe, with past winners going on to become international music figures who have obtained principal and solo positions in world-renowned orchestras.