Visions & Vitality

Taichi Fukumura is the Music Director of the Illinois Symphony Orchestra and the newly appointed Assistant Conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra. A rising Japanese-American conductor acclaimed for his dynamic stage presence and musical finesse, Fukumura is the Second Prize Winner of The Mahler Competition 2023 and a four-time recipient of the Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award 2021-2024.

Recent and upcoming highlights include guest conducting debuts with the Bamberg Symphony, Utah Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, Eugene Symphony, Delaware Symphony, and Colorado Springs Philharmonic. He also returned to the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra as guest conductor after leading the orchestra in over 110 concerts as Assistant Conductor appointed by Music Director Robert Spano.

Other notable appearances include guest conducting members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in their Community Chamber Concert series, leading Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat. He made his international debut with the Orquesta de Cámara de Bellas Artes in Mexico City and was invited by the Berlin Philharmonic as one of 10 assistant conductor candidates for Kirill Petrenko and the Siemens Conductors Scholarship in 2021. He also served as Assistant Conductor of the Chicago Sinfonietta where he previously received mentorship from Music Director Mei-Ann Chen as a Freeman Conducting Fellow. 

Engagements as cover conductor include the Minnesota Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Houston Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Chicago Philharmonic, and a return to the Aspen Music Festival as guest assistant conductor. He assisted Barbara Hannigan at Musikkollegium Winterthur in Switzerland and will assist her again at the Munich Philharmonic in 2026.

Equally adept in opera conducting, Fukumura has conducted full productions of Britten’s Turn of the Screw and Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the Northwestern University Opera Theatre. As Staff Conductor at Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras – the only youth orchestra in the country to present annual opera productions – he led rehearsals of monumental works including, Puccini’s La Bohème.

A passionate advocate for music education, Fukumura led many new initiatives with the Fort Worth Symphony, including the first major update of the orchestra’s education and community programs in over a decade. Under his leadership as Director of Orchestras, the Merit School of Music co-launched the Chicago Musical Pathways Initiative to nurture the next generation of musicians through collaborations with professional organizations such as the Lyric Opera of Chicago and Music of the Baroque. As Founding Music Director, Fukumura led the endowed Northwestern Medical Orchestra to national acclaim within their first four years. His broader cultural leadership and contributions were recognized with a mayoral appointment to the Evanston Arts Council, where he collaborated with local artists and arts organizations to enrich lives and amplify previously unheard voices.

Born in Tokyo, Taichi Fukumura grew up in Boston and began music studies at age three on the violin. He holds a Bachelor of Music in violin performance from Boston University, where he studied with Peter Zazofsky, and both a Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degree in orchestral conducting from Northwestern University under the mentorship of Victor Yampolsky. Additional conducting training includes the Aspen Music Festival Conducting Fellowship with Robert Spano, Pierre Monteux School and Festival with the late Michael Jinbo, the Freeman Conducting Fellowship with Mei-Ann Chen and the Chicago Sinfonietta, and masterclasses and workshops led by Pierre-Michel Durand, Jorma Panula, Christoph Poppen, and Yip Wing-sie. Fukumura is fluent in both English and Japanese.

Praised for her “silvery, ethereal-sounding ophie” by Opera magazine and “lovely vocal  delicacy” in The Telegraph, Madison Leonard returns to Dallas Opera as Euridice in Orfeo ed Euridice and Garsington Opera as Adina in L’elisir d’amore in the 2024-25 season. She also sings her first performances of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 at Walt Disney Concert Hall with the Colburn Orchestra and the Los Angeles Master Chorale. Last season, she sang her first performances of Musetta in La bohème with Atlanta Opera and returned to Garsington Opera in as Giulietta di Kelbar in Un giorno di regno, Utah Opera as Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro as well as returned to Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance with Opera San Antonio. On the concert stage she sang Handel’s Messiah with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra and returns to the Florida Orchestra for Fauré’s Requiem.
 

She made an acclaimed role and company debut as Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier with Garsington Opera. She maintains a close relationship with Seattle Opera at which she has sung previous performances of Gilda in Rigoletto and Chrisann Brennan in The [R]evolution of Steve Jobs as well as Adina in L’elisir d’amore and Frasquita in Carmen. She has sung Gilda in Rigoletto with Dallas Opera and Austin Opera—her performance at the latter was named one of the Top Ten Joys in Dance and Classical Music by the Austin Chronicle. She has sung further performances of Chrisann Brennan in Bates’ The [R]evolution of Steve Jobs with Austin Opera and the Lyric Opera of Kansas City; Leïla in Les pêcheurs des perles with Austin Opera; Juliette in Roméo et Juliette with Central City Opera; Marie in La fille du régiment and Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance with Utah Opera; and Despina in Così fan tutte with Palm Beach Opera. She also joined the Sacramento Philharmonic for  excerpts of Lucia di Lammermoor. Her first performances of Marzelline in Fidelio with North Carolina Opera fell prey to the COVID-19 pandemic, as did her first Pamina in Die Zauberflöte with North Carolina Opera.

With Wolf Trap Opera, she debuted Ilia in Idomeneo and Juliette in Roméo et Juliette following previous performances as Madeline in Glass’ The Fall of the House of Usher and the Daughter in Glass’ The Juniper Tree. She is a former Cafritz Young Artist of Washington National Opera, at which she sang Morgana in Alcina, the High Priestess in Aida, the Rose in Portman’s The Little Prince, and Little Zegner Sister in Mazzoli’s Proving Up. Other recent highlights for the soprano include Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro and Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia with Inland Northwest Opera, Adele in Die Fledermaus with Opera Idaho, and Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro with Amarillo Opera.

On the concert stage, she has twice joined the National Symphony Orchestra: her debut with Gianandrea Noseda conducting Stravinsky’s Pulcinella as part of the SHIFT Festival followed by an immediate return soloist in Vaughan William’s Symphony No. 3 (A Pastoral Symphony) under the baton of Sir Mark Elder. She is a frequent guest of the Florida Orchestra and has joined institution for Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Haydn’s Creation, further performances of Stravinsky’s Pulcinella, and a concert of opera favorites. She sang her first performances Fauré’s Requiem with the Apollo Orchestra in Washington, D.C., joined the New York Festival of Song for a program of music from the British Isles at Caramoor and Merkin Hall in New York City, and offered a solo recital at Washington Adventist University.

Ms. Leonard is a 2018 winner of the Metropolitan National Council Auditions, at which she sang arias from Rigoletto and Hänsel und Gretel with Bertrand de Billy conducting. She is a previous first place winner of the Houston Grand Opera Eleanor McCollum Competition. Additionally, she received the Women’s Voice Fellowship from the Luminarts Cultural Foundation and scholarships from the Lynn Harvey Foundation and the Musicians Club of Women. The soprano earned her Master of Music degree from Northwestern University and her Bachelor of Arts from Pepperdine University. She is a former participant of the Merola Opera Program in association with San Francisco Opera at which she sang Monica in Menotti’s The   Medium and a former young artist of Des Moines Metro Opera.