A World Champion in Leipzig: When Yusuke Matsumura Whistles, He Captivates People

There are championships in fields that do not immediately come to mind when one thinks of competitions. Yusuke Matsumura represent such an example. He is the current world champion in competitive whistling, having won the title on the first of June 2024 atthe “World Whistlers Convention” in Kawasaki, Japan. However, he also owes his worldwide recognition to a street performance in Leipzig—and to a Netflix television series. The Leipziger Zeitungmet with him.

In the lantern of the tower of St. Thomas church, the bell strikes ten times. The outdoor seats of the coffee shops are still in the shadow. Slowly, the sun rises above the rooftops, bathing the linden tree beside the Bach monument in summer light.

An Angel for Bach

Tourists stroll across the courtyardof St. Thomas church and at the bistro tables the first cups of coffee are being served. Suddenly—there is no more fitting expression—music sounds as if out of the blue. The tones are so crystal-clear that one might think an angel was sitting in the treetop, paying a homage to the old cantor of St. Thomas with an enchanting flute solo.

Yet the tones come not from heavenly beings. Before the imposing statue of Johann Sebastian Bach stands, quite earthly and inconspicuous, a young man simple dressed: black tousled hair, a black shirt with a gray one over it, blue jeans. It is Yusuke Matsumura, born in Tokyo in 1992 and raised there, who moved to Germany to study music and voice in Heidelberg beginning in 2017.

‘Jesus bleibet meine Freude’—written by Bach morethan 300 years ago as a chorale for the cantata ‘Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben’(BWV 147). On this Leipzig morning, the piece becomes a spontaneous serenade, whistled by a Japanese artist who originally had to learn to play the tuba. He had been the tallest in his class, and the school orchestra needed a tuba player.

Haydn, Netflix and Petersstraße

After completing his studies in Heidelberg, Yusuke Matsumura auditioned at the Plauen-Zwickau Theater, was hired, and remained a member of the opera choir ensemble until the end of this season. Although he is deeply attached to his work in Zwickau, the Japanese community in Robert Schumann’s birthplace is quite small. Exchange with compatriots is important to the artist. In 2023, more than 280 Japanese citizens lived in Leipzig, which makes the city appealing to Matsumura and a frequent destination for him.

Alongside his stage career, the young man loves to perform on the street. During his first small appearance, he earned 15 euros in 30 minutes; soon afterward, it was 50 euros an hour. His talent convinces passersby—some are so moved by his skill that tears roll down their cheeks.

Matsumura runs his own channel on the social media platform Instagram. Few users followed him there—until that day in February in 2024. On Petersstraße, he set up his small speaker, which plays the accompaniment for his whistling. Mostly young people stopped and listened. Few of them were fans of Joseph Haydn, but the melody echoing between Zara and McDonald’s sounded familiar: the third movement of Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto in E-flat major.

In the popular Netflix series Squid Game,this music serves as the morning wake-up signal for the players. The first season reached 265.2 million viewers within three months. Yusuke Matsumura recorded his performance in Leipzig on his phone and uploaded it to his Instagram profile.

Overnight, his followers grew from three hundred to thirteen thousand. By the time we met at St. Thomas Churchyard, more than 120,000 users had left a red heart for his performance. Since then, the young Japanese artist has been booked for concerts—by wealthy private patrons as well as for public events. In the summer of last year, he captivated the audience at the Leipzig Evening Market in front of the historic Old Town Hall.

World Championship and Training

Yusuke Matsumura became the world champion in competitive whistling on June 1, 2024. The contest includes three categories: music accompaniment (whistling to preexisting music), self-accompaniment (whistling with one’s own instrumental accompaniment), and allied arts (whistling as part of a performance). Matsumura won first place in the ‘music accompaniment’ category, which is considered the most difficult. In the other two disciplines, he placed second.

The kickoff for Matsumura’s whistling career came at the age of thirteen. In 2013, he entered his first competition. In 2015, he achieved fifth place at an international event in Osaka. In 2021, he won an online world championship. The title he earned in the summer of 2024fulfilled a long-cherished dream.

As his reputation has grown, so have his concert bookings. To prepare for his performances, the artist uses a special technique he calls “image training.” He looks at a printed photo of the concert hall, takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and begins to whistle. This ritual helps him focus, warm up, and calm his nerves—a blend of meditation and practical musical exercise.

Farewell to Saxony

At the beginning of the new season, Matsumura will move to the theater in Trier to sing in its opera choir. He can currently be heard in ‘La Traviata’.The move is one of curiosity—but also of necessity, as economic uncertainty at smaller theaters outside Saxony’s major cities troubles not only this artist. The train from Zwickau to Leipzig takes about an hour; Trier is another 330 kilometers farther away.

“I have found friends in Leipzig and love the audience here,’ says the artist. ‘From Trier, it’s not far to France, which makes me happy. But I will always make time to come back to Leipzig.”

As our meeting at St. Thomas Churchyard draws to a close and the waitress brings the bill, I tell her: “You’ve had a real world champion as your guest today.” She pauses, studies the Japanese man, and says, “I’ve seen you somewhere before.” I explain it to her and reassure her that until the day before, I too hadn’t known there was a world championship in competitive whistling.

Now the young blonde woman beams. ‘Now I remember—I heard you on the Petersstraße. It was beautiful…’ she says, smiling asthough she herself might have been that morning’s angel with the flute from heaven.