In 1986 he got the first prize of the Malko Competition for Young Conductors. The same year he impressed the audience when he replaced Herbert von Karajan at the last minute to conduct Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with the Berlin Philharmonic.
Following this event he was greatly acclaimed by the Berlin press. During his debuts with the NHK Orchestra Tokyo in 1988, he was successively appointed first guest conductor of the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra, musical director of the Kyushu Symphony Orchestra and of the Sendai Philharmonic Orchestra. Kazufumi Yamashita conducted several times the Waseda Symphony Orchestra, in particular at the occasion of world tours in 1989 and 1992, and then European tours in 2009 and 2012.
Source: www.wso-tokyo.jp
