Keitaro Harada

"Under the tutelage of Maestro, Adrian Gnam, Harada serves as an Assistant Conductor for The Macon Symphony Orchestra and leads the Mercer/Macon Symphony Youth Orchestra. Harada attended Interlochen Arts Academy studing orchestral conducting and majoring in saxaphone. As a saxaphonist, Harada has performed with piano virtuso, Christopher O'Riley on NPR's classical program, "From the Top!". His recording and experience as a saxaphonist is featured in a High School textbook, "Music! Its Role and Importance in Our Lives" published by Glencoe/McGraw-Hill. After graduating from Interlochen, Harada was invited to participate in the Conductors Workshop at the Spoleto Opera Festival and also the Conductors Institue in South Carolina. Before transferring to Mercer University as a saxaphone performance major, he spent three semesters at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign pursuing a double major in saxaphone performance and music history. Last year, he received an Honorable Mention in the International Academy of Advanced Conducting workshop in St. Petersburg, Russia. He is the winner of the 2006 International Conductors Workshop held at Mercer University in Macon, Ga and was selected twice as the best conductor in the International Masterclas for Orchestral Conducting in Moscow, Russia. In March he conducted a Symphony Orchestra in Krasnodar, Russia. Harada is a senior at Mercer University, studying saxophone with Dr. Monty Cole, orchestral conducting with Maestro Gnam and score reading with Dr. Carol Goff. His past mentors include Debra Richtmeyer, Victoria Bond, Sian Edwards, Bando Kuninobu, Leonid Korchmar, Vladimir Ponkin, and Oleg Proskurnya.

Keitaro Harada has been invited to The 2007 Conductors Guild International Conference in Toronto, Canada. He will participate in the Conducting Workshop under the direction of internationally renowned conductors, Jorma Panula, Raffi Armenian and Kristian Alexander. Harada recently returned from conducting the Moscow Symphony Orchestra in Russia and secured an engagement to return as a guest conductor in 2007-2008 season. Harada has also received a special invitation from Tanglewood Institute to spend time with James Levine during the summer of 2007.

Please visit www.kharada.com for more more information on Keitaro Harada.