Masayuki Honda was born in Tokyo in 1955. During high school, he developed a strong foundation in music through studies in baroque music, ornamentation theory, and modern music, as well as experience conducting a small school orchestra. He went on to study musicology and music theory at the Kunitachi College of Music in Tokyo. After graduating, he continued his education in conducting at the Musikhochschule Köln in Germany under Professor Volker Wangenheim. While in Europe, he frequently visited Amsterdam to attend rehearsals and concerts with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, where encounters with renowned conductors such as Bernard Haitink, Leonard Bernstein, and Nikolaus Harnoncourt—especially Harnoncourt’s rehearsals—left a profound influence on his artistic development.

From 1988 to 1993, Honda directed the Japanese Music Days at the Japanese Cultural Institute in Cologne. Returning to Japan in 1990, he was based in Tokyo for many years and has resided in Fukuoka since 2021. He served as Resident Conductor of the Tokyo Philharmonic Choir from 1990 to 2001. As a Chorusmaster, he contributed to NHK Symphony Orchestra subscription concerts, notably under Maestro Leonard Slatkin for Poulenc’s Gloria and under Maestro Yuzo Toyama for Kodály’s Missa Brevis.

Honda’s work as a guest conductor in opera includes engagements with the Opera Stabile Hamburg, State Opera Stara Zagora (Bulgaria), State Opera Rostov-na-Donu (Russia), Fukushima Opera Company, and Sendai Opera Company (Japan). His orchestral collaborations span internationally, having conducted the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra (Czech Republic), Ruse and Plovdiv Philharmonic Orchestras (Bulgaria), as well as the Kobe Chamber Orchestra, Niigata Chamber Orchestra, Sapporo Sinfonietta, Ensemble Klein, Hokkaido Symphony Orchestra, and Ensemble Flott in Japan. More