These concerts are the North Carolina Symphony debut for Anna Rakitina. 

Born in Moscow to a Ukrainian father and a Russian mother, Anna Rakitina grew up in a musical family and began her education as a violinist before studying conducting at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory with Stanislav Dyachenko and later in Hamburg with Prof. Ulrich Windfuhr. She was finalist of Das kritische Orchester in Berlin in 2018 and participated in the Lucerne Festival Academy’s conducting fellowship program led by Alan Gilbert and Bernard Haitink. 

The 2024/25 season sees Rakitina make debuts with City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Sønderjyllands Symfoniorkester, Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, and Ulster Orchestra. In May 2025, she will conduct at the first-ever Shostakovich Festival Leipzig. Throughout the season, she will also appear with Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Dresdner Philharmonie, Staatskapelle Dresden, Stuttgarter Philharmoniker, Düsseldorfer Symphoniker, Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto - Casa da Música, and Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia.

Rakitina’s appearances include the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as well as the San Francisco Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Tonkünstler-Orchester, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, and Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra. 

Rakitina was Assistant Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 2019 to 2023, where she was only the second woman in the orchestra’s history to hold the position. She concluded her tenure with a performance at the Tanglewood Music Festival with Joshua Bell in August 2023. Previously, she was a Dudamel Fellow at the Los Angeles Philharmonic (2019/20 season). Her talents have been recognized through multiple awards, including second prize at the Malko Competition 2018 and further prizes at the Deutscher Dirigentenpreis 2017 and the TCO International Conducting Competition Taipei 2015.