Kobayashi won the 1st prize and the special award at the International Conductors Competition on Hungarian television in 1974.

Kobayashi served the principal guest conductor of the Kansai and Kyushu Orchestras.

Kobayashi was the first Asian conductor who had conducted Czech Philharmonic at the Prague Spring International Music Festival in 2002.

[2] His compositions include his Passacaglia for orchestra, in honour of the 400th anniversary of relations between Japan and the Netherlands in the year 2000.

[3] Kobayashi received the Liszt Memorial Decoration (1986), the Hungarian Order of Culture (1990), and the Middle Cross with the Star of the Order of the Republic of Hungary decoration (the highest civilian honour) from the Hungarian government in 1994.