These concerts are the North Carolina Symphony debut for Keitaro Harada.

Keitaro Harada has served as Music and Artistic Director of the Savannah Philharmonic since the 2020/21 season. In 2024, he was named Permanent Conductor of the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor and Artistic Partner for the Aichi Chamber Orchestra. He began a five-year tenure as Music and Artistic Director of the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra in the 2025/26 season. He has forged a close connection with the NHK Symphony Orchestra, with whom he appears frequently and has recorded three albums. He is a recipient of the 2023 Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award.

This season, Harada has debut performances with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra and Utah Symphony. In the 2024/25 season, Harada made his debut with Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, returned to Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and made his subscription debut with Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Additional recent highlights include engagements with the Houston and Seattle symphonies; symphony orchestras in Japan including NHK, Yomiuri Nippon, Osaka, and Tokyo; and Orquesta Filarmónica de Sonora in Mexico.

Harada was a Seiji Ozawa Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center in 2010. Since then, he has led Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, Bizet’s Carmen, Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, and Puccini’s La fanciulla del West at North Carolina Opera. In 2017, he led performances of Carmen at Bulgaria’s Sofia National Opera, subsequently conducting the production on a tour of Japan. In past seasons and as Associate Conductor of Arizona Opera, he conducted Don Pasquale, La fille du régiment, and Tosca. In the 2025/26 season he returns to Dayton Opera, where he led Verdi’s Aida in 2024, for Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess.

Harada was Associate Conductor for four years at the Cincinnati Symphony and Pops. He is a six-time recipient of The Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award, and in 2013 he was invited to the Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview. Harada has released eight albums with various orchestras and served on the faculty of the Pacific Music Festival in 2016, 2018, and 2021.