Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Kohki Totsuka is a Japanese-Austrian conductor and scholar. He has conducted the Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria, Lviv National Philharmonic Orchestra, Divertimento Ensemble Milano, Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra, Bucharest Symphony Orchestra, Khmelnytskyi Academic Symphony Orchestra, North Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica Città di Grosseto, and Novus-Classica Camerata at Shanghai Symphony Hall, among others, and has participated in masterclasses with distinguished conductors Sebastian Lang-Lessing, Karel Mark Chichon, Christoph-Mathias Mueller, and Theodore Kuchar. In 2025, he was invited to Das Kritische Orchester at the Hanns Eisler Hochschule Berlin by Forum Dirigieren and to the 13th European Academy for choral conductors, and was selected as one of the eight semi-finalists of the Kussewitzky Competition. His 2026 engagements feature a collaboration with the Turkish State Choir Ankara and Lyatoshinsky’s Symphony No. 3 with the Khmelnytskyi Academic Symphony Orchestra. Born into a musical family, with a conductor and a pianist as parents, he began his training in choral conducting under Johannes Prinz at a young age. He received further guidance from Yuji Yuasa (University of Music Vienna) and Guillermo García Calvo (GMD Opera Chemnitz) in orchestral conducting and Zoltán Pád (Hungarian Radio Choir), Erwin Ortner (Arnold Schönberg Chor) and Māris Sirmais (State Choir Latvija) in choral conducting. He has led numerous choirs across Vienna and Europe, including the Hungarian premieres of works by Erich Zeisl and Ahmet Adnan Saygun. As a vocal coach, he collaborated with singers in song cycles by Ullmann, Zeisl, Berg, and Wagner, among others, from the piano, and served as accompanist for the violin studio as well as the rehearsal pianist for the opera production of Le Nozze di Figaro. In his conducting repertoire, he actively collaborates with contemporary composers including several world premiere performances, and brings a special focus to national symphonic music from Ukraine, Turkey, and Jewish composers. Alongside his musical studies in Vienna and the USA, he holds both a BA and an MA in Philosophy as well as a Certificate in Ethics from the University of Vienna. There, he worked from 2015 to 2023, taught six courses, published articles on intercultural philosophy, and organized interdisciplinary symposiums with lecture concerts. He is currently pursuing the project Tradition, Rationality, and Modern State: Max Weber and Intercultural Philosophy of Music.
Department of Philosophy