Since February 1997, we are sponsoring NHK Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo, one of the leading orchestra in Japan for the purpose to expand the promotion activity for musical art in Japan like that of Europe, through our contribution.

On October 5th, 1926, a professional orchestra came into being - the New Symphony Orchestra, the predecessor of the present NHK Symphony Orchestra. The New Symphony Orchestra, once briefly called the Japan Symphony Orchestra, received full financial support from NHK (Nippon Hoso Kyokai, i.e. Japan Broadcasting Corporation) in 1951, the same year it was renamed the NHK Symphony Orchestra.

Throughout its more than 80-year history, the Orchestra has invited many of the world's most renowned conductors one after another, including Joseph Rosenstock, Herbert von Karajan, Ernest Ansermet, Joseph Keilberth, Lovro von Matacic and Ferdinand Leitner, to name but a few, to raise its artistic and technical standard to a level which now makes it one of the top orchestras in Japan, all the while working with some of the world's most celebrated soloists to offer the public innumerable outstanding performances which have become entrenched as part of Japan's history of classical music.

Through its 29 overseas concert tours which began in 1960, the NHK Symphony Orchestra has won acclaim worldwide for the premiere works which it has commissioned to world popular composers of the day, as well as for its recordings which have been released from world famous labels.

In recent years, the orchestra has presented approximately 120 concerts nationwide annually, including 54 subscription concerts (at NHK Hall and Suntory Hall in Tokyo) which have been relayed to every corner of the country on NHK Television and through FM radio broadcasts, as well as to the world via international broadcasts.

Conductors who are closely associated with the NHK Symphony Orchestra include Charles Dutoit (Music Director Emeritus), Vladimir Ashkenazy (Conductor Laureate), Wolfgang Sawallisch (Honorary Conductor Laureate), Otmar Suitner (Honorary Conductor), Herbert Blomstedt (Honorary Conductor), Yuzo Toyama (Permanent Conductor), and Hiroshi Wakasugi(Permanent Conductor).