東京音楽大学
Born in Tokyo, Hirokami studied conducting, piano, musicology, and viola at the Tokyo College of Music. He won the first Kondrashin International Conducting Competition in Amsterdam in September 1984 at age 26. One of the judges of that competition, pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy, then engaged Hirokami to conduct the NHK Symphony Orchestra on a tour of Japan with Ashkenazy in May 1985.