Akiko Fujimoto, Music Director of the Mid-Texas Symphony, was remembering their concert from September, 2025, and an encounter she had with one of the orchestra’s patrons the week before:
“She said, ‘I noticed you have a mostly Russian program.’ And she said, jokingly, ‘Do you have a Russian soul?’”
Fujimoto thought, and said, “’Actually, I don't know, because you try to… get as close to that composer's music and their nationality as possible. But 99% of the music I conduct is not from Japan, where I come from.’” Fujimotio remembered.
“So I thought that's interesting. We are all allowed to play Rachmaninoff, and Stravinsky's music, but I think it's a challenge that this patron was throwing at me to get to the core of that [Russian] soul.”
The program on this week’s show includes Igor Stravinsky’s suite from “The Firebird,” plus Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2, featuring guest Daria Rabotkina, who teaches now at the Cleveland Institute of Music, but most recently was at Texas State University in San Marcos.
“I could tell the orchestra was… lifted up by her playing. Her music making is so sincere. And a lot of people kind of make this concerto very exciting, in a kind of a sugary way. And she is like raw sugar, you know? It's not Splenda! To me, her music making, from the beginning, was so honest,” said Fujimoto.
PROGRAM:
- Key/Smith: The Star-Spangled Banner
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Overture, La Clemenza di Tito
- Igor Stravinsky: The Firebird
- Sergei Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2
