During the 2025-26 season, conductor Kensho Watanabe makes his HGO debut leading Kevin Puts’ Silent Night, following his widely praised Metropolitan Opera debut with Puts’s The Hours. Other projects during the 2025-26 season include his debut with National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Florida Orchestra, and his returns to Orchestre Métropolitan and Opéra de Montréal (Don Giovanni). Highlights of his 2024-25 season included his return to the Metropolitan Opera to conduct La bohème, his debut at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall with the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, and first appearances with both the Calgary Philharmonic and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, as well as a return to conduct Minnesota Orchestra. Recent seasons have also seen him conduct at the Detroit Opera (Madame Butterfly) and the Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival and lead the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec and the Philadelphia Orchestra, where he maintains a strong artistic relationship following his tenure as Assistant Conductor from 2016 to 2019. Currently based in Paris, Watanabe is also an accomplished violinist. He earned a Master of Music degree from the Yale School of Music and performed as a substitute violinist with the Philadelphia Orchestra from 2012 to 2016. A protégé of Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Watanabe was the inaugural conducting fellow at the Curtis Institute of Music, studying under both Nézet-Séguin and Otto-Werner Mueller. He also holds a Bachelor of Science degree in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology from Yale University.