Rei Hotoda

Rei Hotoda is a conductor and pianist who serves as music director of the Fresno Philharmonic. Across her upcoming Fresno and Albany appearances she pairs new and recent works by living composers with core orchestral repertoire, and on at least one program she both conducts and plays a piano part in the same concert. Listeners can expect thoughtfully built programs that mix familiar symphonic staples with pieces by contemporary voices.

Her upcoming programs show a consistent pattern: a new or recent work by a living composer opens or is woven into an evening built around a well known symphonic anchor. In Fresno, that means Márquez and Marsalis alongside Stravinsky's "Petrushka," or Wijeratne and a new commission set against Mendelssohn's "Reformation" symphony, where listeners will hear the chorale-like brass writing that gives the piece its name. The Albany program pairs Beethoven's "Emperor" concerto with Sibelius's Fifth Symphony, a work built from short motifs that gradually lock together into a broad, brass-lit close. The Orff "Carmina Burana" date promises a big choral and percussion forward finale. Across these, expect a conductor comfortable programming contemporary commissions next to standard repertoire rather than treating them as separate categories.