From Japan to Georgia: Conductor Keitaro Harada Follows Fated Career
The life of maestro Keitaro Harada has been marked by fate. From his fairy tale marriage to the time he was asked to conduct the final opera performance at Tanglewood, it seems like destiny has always been guiding Harada, music and artistic director for the Savannah Philharmonic.
One of the most fated episodes in the 36-year-old conductor’s life was when the Savannah Philharmonic was planning to audition several candidates for a new music director in the fall of 2019. Harada was not one of them.
Keitaro Harada, Credit: JulieIgo Photography
In the spring of 2019, six months before the search was to begin, the Savannah Philharmonic called Harada to see if he could conduct the last two concerts of the 2018-2019 season because the music director at the time was indisposed.
“I said, sure, I’d love to come in,” Harada said. “I love Savannah. It’s beautiful there. So I worked with the orchestra for just under a week, and after the concert, they offered me the job.”
There were supposed to be eight candidates auditioning for the music director’s job, but Harada snuck in front of all of them.
“I had an immediate chemistry with the organization, the board and the search committee,” he said. “I obviously feel bad for the other candidates, but I think it all just kind of made perfect sense for everyone. Fate is fate.”
SAXOPHONE TO CONDUCTING
Harada’s path to becoming a conductor was rather unorthodox. There aren’t, after all, many saxophonists who conduct opera and orchestras. It was while he was in elementary school in Japan that the saxophone first caught Harada’s attention.
“I was at a CD store, and I was very attracted to a CD by the classical saxophonist Nobuya Sugawa,” Harada said. “Until then, I had never heard of a classical saxophone in my life. I was just awestruck and thought it was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever heard.”
Harada’s interest in the saxophone intensified after hearing the instrument in a high school theatrical production.
“‘West Side Story’ was presented by the kids at my school, and it starts with a big saxophone solo,” Harada said. “I always thought that was a really cool solo, a really cool line. I think the primary reason why I chose my instrument is because I wanted to go into musicals. I wanted to work on Broadway. I wanted to go to New York and play in the pit for shows, and that’s what led me coming to the U.S.”
When he was 17, Harada made it to the United States, first to attend the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan and then to study saxophone at the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, where he also majored in music history.
Harada completed his bachelor’s degree in saxophone at Mercer University in Georgia, and became apprentice conductor of the Macon Symphony Orchestra in 2005. He eventually became assistant conductor and received his master’s degree in conducting from Mercer University.
Harada’s varied background, including his interest in Broadway musicals, served him well when he was appointed associate conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Pops.
“I couldn’t have gone to a better place than Cincinnati because of its strength not just in orchestral music but also opera, which is a huge interest of mine,” he said. “And then the Cincinnati Pops! I mean, oh, my gosh, I have been part of so many amazing shows at Cincinnati, like one of the last performances of Aretha Franklin in front of 30,000 people. It was just awesome. Cincinnati was the pinnacle of my development as a conductor.”
OPERA OPPORTUNITY
Harada has a great passion for opera. One of the breakthrough moments in his career occurred while he was a conducting fellow at Tanglewood.
“Maestro James Levine became ill and Maestro Christoph von Dohnányi filled in, however, he was not available to conduct the final performance so it was given to me!” Harada said.
“It was Richard Strauss’s ‘Ariadne auf Naxos,’ one of the most difficult operas to conduct. I conducted the very final performance of that opera without ever giving a rehearsal. I thought I was going to die. I’m very thankful for the experience because you have to be thrown into that kind of situation to figure out if you can or cannot do it.”
Harada could obviously do it because he would go on to become associate conductor of Arizona Opera and continues to conduct opera companies around the world.
THE SAVANNAH SOUND
Now with the Savannah Philharmonic, Harada has an orchestra he can call his own. And he has big plans.
“I have so many visions,” Harada said. “It’s my mission to find out exactly what Savannah needs from the Savannah Philharmonic and how can we be a cultural asset to the community. I want to do things that only the Savannah Philharmonic can do. I want the Savannah Philharmonic to be a household name locally and nationally because we are doing something unique to us.”
Harada says that at the beginning, he’s going to do lots of different repertoire to discover the distinctive “sound” of the Savannah Philharmonic.
“I think the most important thing for me as music and artistic director is to figure out what makes the Savannah Philharmonic unique and what these musicians are passionate about,” he said. “That process is going to be interesting.”
Harada plans to go beyond the standard repertoire of Beethoven and Mahler and perform works by composers who have been unjustly neglected. Especially in light of current social movements, he believes it’s time to bring attention to Black composers, whose music has for too long been over-shadowed by European composers.
Keitaro Harada, Credit: Atsushi Yokota
“I have a lot of African-American colleagues, and I have asked them what is it that I can do because I don’t have all the right answers,” Harada said. “A great suggestion came from a close friend of mine who said I had the opportunity to be a voice to the community through my art. But it’s not just about programming an African-American composer in one concert. That doesn’t cure the world at all.”
Harada says he intends to regularly program Black composers of the present and the past, like the 18th century French composer Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, known as the “Black Mozart.”
“I’m programming him coming up next season,” Harada said. “I think it’s essential to commission new works, but it’s also essential to bring out works that have already been composed. Seeking the forgotten masterworks and bringing them to life is also very important.”
PERFECT PAIR
Harada is making his home in Savannah with the person he calls “completely my better half,” his wife, Yuri Kurashima. It didn’t take long for Harada to realize that he had met his soul mate.
“My mom said she met this lady who has a daughter about my age, so we started talking via Instagram and that escalated into video chatting, and then we decided that we should meet,” Harada said. “We started talking on February 14, Valentine’s Day. Then, 10 days later, I asked her to fly out to Cincinnati, and we met for the first time. Within 24 hours of meeting, we decided that we should get married. It was literally love at first sight.”
One can see how they are the perfect match. Like Harada, Kurashima is a person of many accomplishments. In addition to being a professional tennis player, she’s also a fashion designer. Her grandfather, Takeo Nishida, was one of Japan’s first fashion designers. At 99, he’s still designing.
“He’s phenomenal!” Harada said. “So that’s on her mom’s side. On her father’s side, her father was a former Davis Cup player for Japan. A very famous tennis player. It’s a nice balance because Yuri loves music and loves the arts, but she’s not a musician. I’m basically a butterfly. I’m artistic. I’m a romantic, and with her, it’s either a win or a loss. That’s sports. She’s the right person to keep me grounded.”
Savannah has warmly embraced the glamorous couple.
A BRIGHT OUTLOOK
Harada’s accolades and achievements are extraordinary, including being a five-time recipient of The Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award. But he says his greatest accomplishment is being named music and artistic director of the Savannah Philharmonic.
“I now have my musical family, which is awesome,” he said. “I have an amazing partner named Amy Williams, who’s our executive director. Amy is coming from Camerata Pacifica and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and with me coming from Cincinnati, we’re bringing a lot of energy, creativity and experience. I’m bringing a lot of passion, knowledge and motivation to make it a better organization than when I came.”
It would seem that the Savannah Philharmonic and Keitaro Harada were meant to be. Or as Harada would say, “Fate is fate.”
