Born in 2006 in Boston, Massachusetts, Keila Wakao has rapidly gained international recognition as one of the most compelling young violinists of her generation. She was awarded a 2026 Avery Fisher Career Grant, and won First Prize at the 2021 Menuhin International Violin Competition (Junior Division), where she also received the Composer Award for Outstanding Performance of a Commissioned Work. Her major appearances include her Boston Symphony Orchestra debut at the 2024 Season Opening Night Gala under the direction of Andris Nelsons, and her upcoming debut at the Tanglewood Music Festival (July 2026) with Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, performing the Barber Violin Concerto. 

She has also been invited to appear at distinguished events, including as the sole performer at the unveiling of Seiji Ozawa’s sculpture at Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood (July 2025). Keila also premiered Bobby Ge’s Violin Concerto with David Allan Miller and the Albany Symphony (November 2025), and recorded her debut album with Octavia Records (January 2026) to be released later this year.

Additionally, Keila has received further honors including First Prize at the 2026 Schadt String Competition, the Gold Medal and Bach Prize at the 2021 Stulberg International String Competition, the 2023 Aoyama Music Foundation Award for Emerging Artists in Japan, the 2023 Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant in New York, and the 2024 Next Generation Distinguished Cultural Achievement Award from the Japan Society of Boston.

Keila Wakao has performed as soloist and recitalist throughout the United States, Japan, Germany, Singapore, and the United Kingdom. She has appeared in leading venues including Symphony Hall and Jordan Hall in Boston, Cadogan Hall in London, Victoria Concert Hall in Singapore, and Carnegie Weill Recital Hall in New York City. She made her solo debut with orchestra at the age of nine and has since performed with ensembles including the Boston, Tokyo Philharmonic, Tokyo Symphony, Baden-Baden, Albany, and Richmond symphony orchestras, as well as the Resound Collective, and the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra. In 2017, she was invited to speak and perform at TEDxBoston.

Keila began playing the violin at the age of three. At the age of six, she was accepted as a student of former Boston Symphony Orchestra Concertmaster Joseph Silverstein, and from the ages of nine to eighteen, studied with Donald Weilerstein. She has also worked with Itzhak Perlman and participated in the Perlman Music Program from 2018 to 2022. She is currently a second-year undergraduate student of Miriam Fried at the New England Conservatory, where she is a recipient of the Starling Foundation Full Scholarship.

Keila Wakao performs on the 1690 Cremona “Theodor” Stradivarius violin, on loan from the Ryuji Ueno Foundation and Rare Violins In Consortium, Artists and Benefactors Collaborative.

https://www.keilawakao.com/

Francisco Noya is a prominent figure in the Boston and New England music scene, where he has earned a reputation as a versatile interpreter of symphonic and operatic literature. He served as music director of the Longwood Symphony Orchestra in Boston and Symphony by the Sea in Manchester. Mr. Noya currently serves as resident conductor of the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra, where he represents the Philharmonic artistically and educationally throughout the Rhode Island community. He is also the music director of the New Philharmonia Orchestra in Newton, MA.

Noya is also a respected member of the conducting faculty of the Berklee College of Music in Boston. In the fall of 2008, he began his tenure as music director of the Berklee Contemporary Symphony Orchestra, where he is actively engaged in the exploration of cutting-edge orchestral repertoire.

Noya began his professional career in his native Venezuela, as conductor of the Youth Orchestra of Valencia, one of the original ensembles of “El Sistema.” After earning advanced degrees in composition and conducting from Boston University, Noya was appointed to serve as assistant conductor of the Caracas Philharmonic and assistant to the music director of the Teatro Teresa Carreño, one of the most prestigious theaters in Latin America. Noya continued his conducting career in the United States by serving as music director of the Empire State Youth Orchestra in Albany, New York for ten seasons. During his tenure, he led the group on two European tours as well as in concerts at both Carnegie Hall in New York City and in Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood.

In the U.S., Noya has appeared as guest conductor of the Boston Pops, Baltimore, Nashville, San Antonio, and Omaha Symphony Orchestras, and the Cape Cod Symphony, among others. In addition, he has performed internationally with orchestras in Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Spain, Italy and Russia. In Venezuela, Noya has collaborated with “El Sistema,” teaching Master Classes and conducting orchestral performances throughout the country. For the past three seasons, Noya has been a guest conductor with the Orquesta Académica of Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires.

Japanese-American conductor Ken Yanagisawa is the Music Director of the Boston Opera Collaborative and the Boston Annex Players, the Associate Conductor of the Boston Civic Symphony, the Assistant Conductor of the New Philharmonia Orchestra, and an Assistant Professor at Berklee College of Music. He made his Japanese debut conducting Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte with Kansai Nikikai and the Japan Century Symphony Orchestra in February 2023 and will return in Fall 2026 to conduct Mozart’s Clemenza di Tito. A 2024 Aspen Conducting Academy Fellow and James Conlon Conductor Prize recipient, Ken has previously served as a Conducting Apprentice with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and has assisted/covered the National Symphony Orchestra, Rhode Island Philharmonic, Berlin Academy of American Music, and Berlin Opernfest, among others.

Ken recently completed a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Orchestral Conducting at Boston University under the guidance of James Burton and also holds graduate degrees in conducting from the Manhattan School of Music and a B.A. in music from Yale University. Prior to Yale he attended the New England Conservatory as an Undergraduate Diploma candidate for Oboe Performance under the tutelage of John Ferrillo. His other teachers include George Manahan, William Lumpkin, Bernard Labadie, and Tatsuya Shimono. In masterclasses and festivals, he has been taught by renowned artists and pedagogues such as Robert Spano, Leonard Slatkin, Mark Stringer, Dame Jane Glover, Gerard Schwarz, and Jorma Panula. He is deeply grateful for all the excellent guidance and mentorship he has received thus far in his life as a musician.