Keitaro Harada
Conductor
Conductor Keitaro Harada maintains a growing, international presence throughout North America, Asia, Mexico and Europe. With home bases in the United States and Japan, the 2020-21 season marked his tenure as Music & Artistic Director of the Savannah Philharmonic and Associate Conductor of the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra. Harada’s broad scope of musical interest in symphonic, opera, chamber works, pops, film scores, ballet, educational, outreach, and multi-disciplinary projects leads to diverse and eclectic programs.
Recent and upcoming highlights include the symphony orchestras of Houston, Seattle, NHK, Yomiuri Nippon, Osaka, Hawaii, Fort Worth, Indianapolis, Memphis, Louisiana, Charlotte, West Virginia, Tucson, Phoenix, Virginia, as well as the Osaka Philharmonic, Kanagawa Philharmonic, Nagoya Philharmonic, New Japan Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic and Orquesta Filarmónica de Sonora (México).
No stranger to the operatic cannon, Harada returns next season for Puccini’s La bohème with North Carolina Opera, for whom he has previously led productions of Pagliacci, Carmen and Britten’s Turn of the Screw. In 2017, he conducted Mazzoli’s Song from the Uproar for Cincinnati Opera, as well as run of Carmen for Bulgaria’s Sofia National Opera and Ballet that reprised with a Japan tour in fall 2018. In past seasons and as Associate Conductor of Arizona Opera, he led productions of Don Pasquale, Le Fille du Regiment and Tosca. As a 2010 Seiji Ozawa Fellow at Tanglewood, Harada conducted critically-acclaimed performances of Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos.
Having completed his fourth season as Associate Conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati POPS, Harada regularly assisted Music Director Louis Langrée, conducted the CSO and POPS, and collaborated with James Conlon and Juanjo Mena.