Biography
Yasuhito Sugiyama has been the principal tuba player at the Cleveland Orchestra since 2006. He began his professional career with the Kyoto Symphony Orchestra, followed by stints with the Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra and Osaka Symphoniker. In 1997, he joined the New Japan Philharmonic; that same year, he also began performing with the Saito Kinen Orchestra.
In 1998, he appeared as soloist with the New Japan Philharmonic in a performance of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Tuba Concerto and held solo recitals in Tokyo and Osaka the following year. In 2002, he performed as the soloist in Tubby the Tuba at a family concert presented by the New Japan Philharmonic.
In 2003, Sugiyama became the first Asian musician to join the orchestra of the Vienna State Opera. He appeared in the 2005 Vienna Philharmonic New Year’s Concert under the baton of Lorin Maazel, and remained with the Vienna Philharmonic until September 2005, after which he joined the Cleveland Orchestra. In June 2014, he participated in the Gabrieli Project as a member of the National Brass Ensemble in Sonoma, California and in 2021 performed Vaughan Williams’ Tuba Concerto with the Aichi Chamber Orchestra.
A dedicated educator, Sugiyama has taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music and serves as a guest professor at Soai University and Tokyo College of Music. He has also given master classes at institutions such as Indiana University, the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and Northwestern University.
Since 2021, he has organized and hosted the JAPAN Brass Seminar each summer in Kawanishi City, Hyogo Prefecture. In August 2022, he performed a duo recital with his close friend, trombonist Massimo La Rosa. He performed John Williams’ Tuba Concerto under the direction of Stéphane Denève at the 2023 Ozawa Matsumoto Festival and again in October 2025 with the New World Symphony.
A native of Hyogo, Japan, Sugiyama is a graduate of Soai University in Osaka, where he studied with Shuzo Karakawa of the Osaka Philharmonic. He also studied with Rex Martin at Northwestern University and with Robert Tucci of the Bavarian State Opera and the Munich Philharmonic. His other principal teachers include Shigeo Takeda, Fuminori Ogata, and Ronald Bishop, and he studied chamber music with Shinichi Go.
