TOSHIYUKI SHIMADA is Music Director and Conductor of the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra in New London; Music Director and Conductor of the Orchestra of the Southern Finger Lakes; and he has been just appointed as Music Director and Conductor of the New Britain Symphony Orchestra.  He was Music Director of the Yale Symphony Orchestra of Yale University since 2005 until 2019. He is also Music Director Laureate of the Portland Symphony Orchestra in Portland, Maine, for which he served as Music Director from 1986 to 2006. Prior to his Portland engagement he was Associate Conductor of the Houston Symphony Orchestra for six years. Since 1998, he has also served as Principal Conductor of the Vienna Modern Masters recording label in Austria.

Maestro Shimada has been invited back to conduct La Orquesta Fliarmonica de Jalisco, in Guadalajara, Mexico, as a part of the 25th Festival Cultural de Mayo.  He continues close association with Turkish Orchestras, and recently he has been guest conducting for the Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra. 

This past summer, Maestro Shimada conducted a very special concert at the DMZ, South Korea, with the Lindenbaum Festival Orchestra with all the Korean TV stations covering the concert, and he has appeared with the same orchestra in Jeju Island for the commemoration of the Massacre 4.3. Maestro Shimada performed in the Carnegie Hall in New York with the Yale Symphony Orchestra, also has appeared in Austrian RadioKulturhaus, in Vienna, with the MUK Symphony Orchestra. He had also guest conducted the Presidential Orchestra of Turkey in Ankara, and the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic, one of the best orchestras in Turkey with a distinguished Turkish pianist, Idil Biert, who had celebrated her 75th Birthday, and he made the return engagement with the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra in Ankara, Turkey. In May and June, 2017, he led the Yale Symphony Orchestra on the highly successful Russian Tour, performing for the full houses in Saint Petersburg (White Hall), Moscow (The Great Hall of the Moscow "Tchaikovsky" State Conservatory), Veliky Novgorod and Yaroslavl, and received stunning reviews.                

Maestro Shimada has been a frequent guest conductor with a number of international orchestras, including the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra in Ankara, the Izmir State Symphony Orchestra in Izmir, the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra in Vilnius; La Orquesta Filarmónica de Jalisco, Guadalajara, Mexico; the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra; the Karlovy Vařy (Karlsbad) Symphony Orchestra; the Prague Chamber Orchestra; the Slovak Philharmonic; NÖ Tonkünstler Orchestra in Vienna; L’Orchestre National de Lille in France; and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra at the Edinburgh Festival. He has also conducted the Houston Symphony, the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, the San José Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Pops Orchestra, the Pacific Symphony Orchestra, the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, and many other US and Canadian orchestras. In
The Yale Symphony Orchestra and Maestro Shimada made a number of highly successful tour internationally, namely Russia, Brazil, Tureky and Italy.  performing in Sao Paolo, Rio de Janeiro, and other cities.  

In addition to these activities he has held the position of Artistic Adviser of the Tulare County Symphony Orchestra in California, and served as Music Director of the Nassau Symphony Orchestra in New York; the Cambiata Soloists, a contemporary music ensemble in Houston; the Shepherd School Symphony Orchestra at Rice University; and the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra in Los Angeles.

He has collaborated with distinguished artists such as Itzhak Perlman, André Watts, Peter Serkin, Emanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman, Idil Biret, Peter Frankl, János Starker, Joshua Bell, Hilary Hahn, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Cho-Liang Lin, Sir James Galway, David Shifrin, Evelyn Glennie, and Barry Tuckwell.  In the Pops field he has performed with Doc Severinsen, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, and Marvin Hamlisch.

Maestro Shimada has had the good fortune to study with many distinguished conductors of the past and the present, including Leonard Bernstein, Herbert von Karajan, Herbert Blomstedt, Hans Swarovsky, and Michael Tilson Thomas.  He was a finalist in the 1979 Herbert von Karajan conducting competition in Berlin, and a Fellow Conductor in the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute in 1983. In addition, he was named Ariel Musician of the Year in 2003 by Ariel Records, and received the ASCAP award in 1989.  He graduated from California State University, Northridge, studying with David Whitwell and Lawrence Christianson, and attended the University of Music and Dramatic Arts in Vienna, Austria.

Consistently recognized as an integral and beloved member of every community he joins, Maestro Shimada has received recognitions from the Portland Fire Department's Merit Award, the Maine Publicity Bureau Cultural Award, and the Italian Heritage Society Cultural Award. He has had a number of state and city holidays named in his honor: Toshiyuki Shimada Day in Houston, TX; Toshiyuki Shimada Week in Portland, Maine; Toshiyuki Shimada Day in the State of Maine; and Toshiyuki Shimada Day in the State of Connecticut. In May 2006 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate Degree in Fine Arts by Maine College of Arts. At Yale University he has been selected as a Fellow of Davenport College and a member of the Elizabethan Club.

He records with the Naxos and the Vienna Modern Masters. With the Vienna Modern Masters label, and with the Moravian Philharmonic, in Czech Republic, he has fifteen compact discs on the label. He also records for Capstone Records, Querstand-VKJK (Germany), and Albany Records. His Paul Hindemith CD of the complete piano concerti with the famed Turkish pianist, Idil Biret, was released in 2013. His Music from the Vatican with the Prague Chamber Orchestra and Chorus is available through iTunes and Rhapsody. 

Recently, held a teaching position at Yale University, as Associate Professor of Conducting with Yale School of Music and Department of Music.  He has held a teaching position at Connecticut College, as Directer of the Orchestra Activity. He has been a faculty member of Rice University, Houston, Texas; the University of Southern Maine; and served as Artist Faculty at the Houston Institute of Aesthetic Study. He has conducted All State Honor and Regional Honor Orchestras for Connecticut, California, New York, Maine and Massachusetts. He was one of the distinguish speakers at the Chopin Symposium 2010, at Hacettepe University in Ankara, Turkey. He has  been teaching at the New York Conducting Workshop, guiding young talented conductors. He is also a Board Member of the Conductors Guild.