Brevard Music Center Orchestra
Anna Rakitina, conductor
Nancy Zhou, violin
CARLOS SIMON Festive Fanfare and Overture
DIMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH Violin Concerto No. 1
JOHANNES BRAHMS Symphony No. 4
Carlos Simon’s Festive Fanfare and Overture launches this exciting orchestral program, followed by Shostakovich’s intense and virtuosic Violin Concerto No. 1. Brahms’s Symphony No. 4 brings the evening to a powerful close with lush lyricism and one of the most monumental finales in the symphonic repertoire.
Anna Rakitina
Conductor
Anna Rakitina has firmly established herself as one of the most exciting and sought-after conductors of her generation following a series of highly acclaimed appearances...
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Anna Rakitina has firmly established herself as one of the most exciting and sought-after conductors of her generation following a series of highly acclaimed appearances with Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco Symphony Orchestras as well as the 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.
The 2024-25 season sees Rakitina make debuts with City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Sønderjyllands Symfoniorkester, Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra, and North Carolina Symphony. In May 2025, as part of the Leipzig Shostakovich Festival, she will conduct a specially assembled festival orchestra consisting of young musicians from the Gewandhaus Orchestra’s Mendelssohn Orchestra Academy, the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra and students from the Leipzig University of Music and Theatre Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Throughout the season, she will will also appear with Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Dresdner Philharmonie, Staatskapelle Dresden, Stuttgarter Philharmoniker, Düsseldorfer Symphoniker, Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música, and Orquestra Sinfónica de Galicia.
In recent seasons, Anna Rakitina has worked with orchestras such as BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Nürnberger Symphoniker, NDR Radiophilharmonie, Orchestre philharmonique du Luxembourg, Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Orchestre National de Lille, and Norwegian National Opera Orchestra. In North America, she has appeared with notable orchestras such as the Baltimore, Cincinnati, Houston, Utah, Quebec, and Vancouver Symphony Orchestras.
Anna Rakitina regularly collaborates with soloists including Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Inon Barnatan, Joshua Bell, Renaud Capuçon, Augustin Hadelich, Lucas and Arthur Jussen, Daniel Hope, Gil Shaham, Christian Tetzlaff, Jan Vogler, and Alisa Weilerstein. She continues to champion music by today’s composers including Anna Clyne, Elena Langer, and Ellen Reid.
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 highly acclaimed 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). Rakitina’s talents have been recognised 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.
Born in Moscow to a Ukrainian father and a Russian mother, 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 wasfinalist of ‘Das kritische Orchester’ in Berlin in 2018, participated in the Lucerne Festival Academy’s conducting fellowship scheme led by Alan Gilbert and Bernard Haitink. She has attended masterclasses with Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Vladimir Jurowski, Johannes Schlaefli, and the 2022 Ammodo Masterclass conducting the Concertgebouworkest led by Fabio Luisi.
Nancy Zhou
Violin
Known for her searing virtuosity, Nancy Zhou seeks to invigorate appreciation for the art and science of the violin.
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Known for her probing musical voice and searing virtuosity, Nancy Zhou seeks to invigorate appreciation for the art and science of the violin. Her thoughtful musicianship and robust online presence resonate with a global audience in such a way that brings her on stage with leading orchestras around the world.
More than 20 years since her orchestral debut, Nancy has collaborated with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Munich Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, New Jersey Symphony, Naples Philharmonic, San Diego Symphony, among others. A passionate soloist who cherishes chamber music collaborations and commits to the responsibility of education, Nancy has performed at festivals including the Verbier Festival, Tongyeong Music Festival, and Marvão Festival.
Over the years, the violinist’s interest in cultural heritage and the humanities resulted in a string of notable collaborations. In collaboration with the New Jersey Symphony and Xian Zhang, she presented Zhao Jiping’s first violin concerto; gave the US premieres of Unsuk Chin’s Gran Cadenza for two solo violins with Anne-Sophie Mutter; performed Chen Qigang’s La joie de la souffrance with the Rogue Valley Symphony; and, in partnership with the La Jolla Symphony, gave the West Coast premiere of Vivian Fung’s Violin Concerto no. 1. The violinist’s critically-acclaimed debut album, STORIES (re)TRACED, is a response to these questions and features four seminal and inextricably connected works for solo violin.
Born in Texas to Chinese immigrant parents, Nancy began the violin under the guidance of her father, who hails from a family of traditional musicians. She went on to study with Miriam Fried at the New England Conservatory while pursuing her interest in literature at Harvard University. She is now a distinguished Professor of Violin at the Tianjin Juilliard School.