Biography

Japanese-American conductor Jotaro Nakano is a Southern California native, who is currently serving as the Music Director of the Longwood Symphony Orchestra in Boston, Massachusetts, the orchestra of Boston’s medical community. As an impassioned citizen artist, Jotaro is always seeking to connect and inspire underprivileged communities with the deeply moving and uplifting powers of art and music.

Jotaro is currently a doctoral candidate under the instruction of Marin Alsop at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University. In 2021, Jotaro was appointed as the Peabody Arts in Health Fellow at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Building upon the partnership of both institutions, the Arts in Health Fellowship was created to integrate music with medicine in places of healthcare for the medical community of Baltimore. Through meaningful collaborations both with artists and medical professionals, Jotaro explores the healing possibilities of art and music within clinical environments. Jotaro’s most recent projects have included the “Johns Hopkins Hospital Pandemic Playlist,” a series of playlists curated from over three hundred submissions from Johns Hopkins hospital staff; and “Music for H.O.P.E.,” a video concert dedicated to Johns Hopkins medical workers, recorded in Johns Hopkins’ historic Hurd Hall.

Since its founding in 2019, Jotaro has served as director and conductor of the Chamber String Orchestra of the SA’Oaxaca Strings International Music Festival in Oaxaca, Mexico. SA’Oaxaca is the first tuition-free chamber string music festival in Oaxaca with the mission to provide “excellent educational opportunities to underserved Mexican string instrumentalists, and increase the study and promotion of Latin American and Hispanic chamber music compositions.” Since its founding, SA’Oaxaca has welcomed hundreds of Mexican musicians and performed for countless communities and audiences. Jotaro is privileged to work with these talented students through this intercultural exchange of art.

Previously, Jotaro served as Music Director of the Ann Arbor Camerata, Cover Conductor for the Baltimore Symphony, and Conducting Fellow of the Long Beach Symphony. Jotaro has conducted orchestras in Mexico, the Czech Republic, Romania, and all across the United States. With every new project, Jotaro’s commitment is to maximize artistic collaboration to fill the world with wonder and hope.