Takeshi Kubota（窪田 健志) has been a member of the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra since 2010 and has held the principal timpani/percussion position since 2013.
He was born in Osaka in 1983, and his first contact with percussion (Drum set) was at four years old. He graduated from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music (known in Japan as Geidai) and got a master degree under Makoto Aruga and Takafumi Fujimoto. He participated in several music festivals as a student, including Pacific Music Festival 2004, Argerich Music Festival 2004/2005 and Ozawa Seiji Ongaku-juku 2005 in China.
He has been to Europe and the USA to study timpani with Mr. Roland Kohloff, John Beck, Maarten der Fark and Marinus Komst.
He has several awards for his percussion recitals including Excellence Award in the National Arts Festival (Agency for Cultural Affairs) 2019 and Best Artist prize 2013 in Nagoya Civic Art Festival, Aoyama music award 2013 in Kyoto. He has also commissioned several pieces (by Masanori Kato for vibraphone, Masato Suzuki and Kenji Sakai for timpani, and Aoi Yamakawa for marimba) which were published by Zen-on Music and Schott Music (without Yamakawa) Japan.
He has performed timpani under prestigious conductors such as Gergiev, Mazur, Luisi, Bosse, Myung-hung, Ozawa, Atzumon and more. He has even played as a soloist with the Nagoya Philharmonic, Geidai Philharmonic and Aichi Chamber Orchestra.
Takeshi splits his time playing timpani and percussion with the Nagoya Philharmonic, playing as a guest player for other orchestras (NHK Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa), his percussion ensemble 'Kubotta Percussion Quartet', and solo recitals for multiple percussion. He also teaches adjunct at Nagoya College of Music and Kikuzato High School.
He especially enjoys Baroque music and owns a set of baroque timpani. He studied baroque performance and baroque dance at a seminar in Poland in 2017. He loves classical music and playing Bach on keyboard percussion.
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