Sunday, March 3, 2024
3:00 PM EST

Japanese-American conductor Ken Yanagisawa is the Assistant Conductor of the Boston Civic Symphony and is currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Orchestral Conducting at Boston University under the guidance of James Burton. He will be making his Japanese debut as a guest conductor for a production of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte with Kansai Nikikai and the Japan Century Symphony Orchestra at the Hyogo Performing Arts Center Japan in February 2023, and most recently served as assistant conductor for the BU Opera Institute productions of Ned Rorem’s Our Town and Mozart’s Così fan tutte as well as for the BU Symphony Orchestra & Symphonic Chorus performance of Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem at Boston Symphony Hall.

Previously, Ken completed a research residency at the Kyoto City University of Arts and received a Master of Music and Professional Studies Certificate in Orchestral Conducting from the Manhattan School of Music. While a student at MSM, he was selected to participate in the Manhattan School of Music / Leonard Slatkin Conductors Project and was subsequently invited to work with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra as a Conducting Fellow in March 2020. He also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music from Yale University where he received the Joseph Lentilhon Selden Memorial Award and the Stanton Wheeler Award, and prior to Yale he attended the New England Conservatory as an Undergraduate Diploma candidate for Oboe Performance under the tutelage of John Ferrillo.

Fernando Gaggini recently attended the 2023 Conducting Academy at Domaine Forget de Charlevoix in Québec, Canada, working with Mtros. Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Kensho Watanabe in daily lessons and masterclasses with the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal and the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec.

He is currently pursuing his Orchestral Conducting DMA at Boston University under the guidance of James Burton. During his time at BU, he has conducted Gabriela Lena Frank’s Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout, Manuel de Falla’s El Amor Brujo, Beethoven’s König Stephan, Schubert’s Symphony No.8 ‘Unfinished’ and Schumann’s Genoveva overture in concert and served as assistant conductor for Mahler’s Symphony No.2 ‘Resurrection’ and Brahms’s Ein Deutches Requiem concerts at Symphony Hall. Fernando has also assisted William Lumpkin at the BU Opera Institute mainstage productions of Händel’s Alcina and Jake Heggie’s If I Were You. In October 2022 he conducted the Fringe Festival production of Daniel Catán’s opera La Hija de Rappacini. Continuing with this now 3-year long collaboration, he will assist and conduct the mainstage production of Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito next April.

In 2019 he studied at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München with Marcus Bosch and Georg Fritzsch. During his time in Germany, he studied piano coaching with Wolf Storz and conducted the Münchener Kammerorchester, Münchner Symphoniker, Anhaltische Philharmonie Dessau, Norddeutsche Philharmonie Rostock and Bad Reichenhaller Philharmoniker.

Fernando holds a MM degree in Orchestral Conducting from the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) with Mark Gibson and Aik-Khai Pung as his mentors. He participated in masterclasses with Ken Lam and Neil Varon. Highlights of performances at CCM include Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, Minkus’s ballet La Bayadere, Debussy’s Rhapsody for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra and Brahms’s Serenade No. 2. As part of Opera Bootcamp summer program in 2018 he conducted Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro and Donizetti’s Don Pasquale.

Originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Gaggini graduated from his Bachelor in Orchestral Conducting at the Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina in 2015, where he studied with Carlos Vieu.