BEAUTIFULLY CONDUCTED
If you don’t know who Rei Hotoda is, you should. The Fresno Philharmonic’s first female music director and conductor is turning preconceived notions of the traditional classical music-going experience on their head. Music isn’t just an affinity for the conductor, pianist, and advocate; “It’s been part of my life since I can consciously remember,” Rei speaks of her musical love affair. “It’s like in my DNA.” Hers is a story of a lifelong devotion to music. The passion that she consistently pours into her work never ceases—in fact, it only amplifies. For the Central Valley to host such an outstanding woman as a cornerstone of cultural significance is something to be celebrated.
Rei’s journey to Fresno started in Tokyo. As she grew up, music was always a significant aspect of her family life—her father was a visual artist and would play classical music; her mother was a music major and educator. At merely three years old, Rei began playing piano, her mother being her first teacher. “She’s been my role model all my life,” Rei shares. “This powerful, single mom. Kind of like a tiger mom in the sense that she had high ambitions and was the stage mom.” From the age of seven, Rei was doing piano competitions at her mother’s initiation and loved it.
At age five, Rei moved to Chicago with her mother after her parents’ divorce, and the Windy City was captivating for them. “She would take me to all the arts that were accessible to us, and it was a great upbringing, in that I was surrounded by music all the time.” Rei fondly recalls going to see the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, hearing world-renowned pianists, and attending off-Broadway musicals with her mom. In high school, she played in the orchestra and took up the violin in her sophomore year. By her senior year, Rei was sitting next to the concertmaster—the second seat from the top level.
In college, piano performance became Rei’s sole focus. She went off to the Eastman School of Music for her undergraduate before attending University of Southern California (USC) to obtain her master’s. “After graduating USC with a Doctorate in Piano Performance, I did go to the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland for graduate studies in orchestral conducting for two years. Immediately after my studies there, I got my first professional break as the assistant conductor of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra in Canada.”
Although her resume is quite extensive, Rei is quick to acknowledge that the people who have supported her career have played a huge part in her success. “I’ve had such great mentors,” Rei says. “Women mentors, like my mother,” who ran a Japanese restaurant for many years when the duo moved to Chicago, making her a multi-hyphenate businesswoman, entrepreneur, chef, and bookkeeper, all while being a single mom and fostering Rei’s natural talent and fervent passion.
Besides her mother, Rei’s teachers and mentors included Gustav Meier and Thierry Fischer, as well as Jaap Van Zweden (Music Director of the New York Philharmonic), who mentored her for three years. Rei counts herself lucky to have Marin Alsop (Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Chief Conductor and Curator of Chicago’s Ravinia Festival, and former Music Director and Conductor Laureate of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra) in her corner for nearly two decades after winning Alsop’s Taki-Alsop Conducting Fellowship in 2006. “She has been my mentor for my entire conducting career.”
The conducting bug bit while Rei was at USC. “I was able to conduct a small ensemble and I felt like this was my calling,” she reflects on it. “My years as a musician, as a pianist, led me to this and to embark on a conducting career.” Rei was fortunate to win audition after audition, leading her to conduct major orchestras and symphonies all over, such as in Canada, Dallas, and Salt Lake City.
One such audition was for the Fresno Philharmonic. In 2017, Rei earned the position of Music Director and Conductor, and her reception there has been so phenomenal that her contract has been extended until 2025. “Being the Music Director of the Fresno Philharmonic is really not a job for me—it’s such a passion for me to be a musician. It is what I live and breathe for. I could not imagine myself doing anything else other than to share music with everyone, because I just feel like it is so ingrained in my DNA.”
In 2023, Rei will have been conducting for 17 years. “For me, 88 keys were not enough sound,” Rei speaks of the piano. “I wanted the sound of a full orchestra. There is a huge shift from a performer to a conductor, and that shift was something that I was willing to go through. But it is like learning a new instrument and wielding 73 professional musicians is very different from wielding 88 keys that are completely under your control.”
Rei likens conducting to driving a luxury car. She explains, “I’m conducting with this less-than-an-ounce baton in my right hand, but the sound and the power behind it is incredible, and you have so much control … with just very small gestures. So, like when you’re driving a Ferrari, just a little touch of the gas and you’re already at 60 miles an hour! It’s very exciting in that way. But it’s also very sensitive, and so you have to be able to maneuver everything … very delicately. It’s an incredible feeling, and I get such a high from conducting every time I’m on the podium.”
Being a conductor is multifaceted; however, Rei pushes her abilities to another level. Once a year or so, she will simultaneously play piano or harpsichord while conducting. “It is using all of my senses and all different parts of my body, including my head and the tip of my head … Sometimes I’ll play with my left hand and conduct with my right hand. Sometimes I will use my face as gestures. The Fresno Philharmonic especially are such great musicians that they’re able to follow me.” This style of playing is called chamber music. “That’s a really intimate form of making music together where we’re relying on each other … I find it’s such an honor to do that with my musicians because it is a way for me to be with them musically playing, as opposed to being on the podium.”
Rei is known for using her platform to advocate for modern, living composers, and to amplify marginalized voices. “What we’re doing with the Fresno Philharmonic are innovative projects with commissions.” Rei explains that commission is like creating a new work. “We work with young, exciting composers, and we try to work with California composers. And the thing is, classical music has this stigma of not being accessible; of playing dead White men from Europe. We’re trying to change that whole perception.”
For example, this June, the Fresno Philharmonic will be pairing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Justice Symphony by Damien Geter (a living, African American composer) on the 60th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s Address on Civil Rights. “I think it’s really telling when there is a story behind Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and a similar story written parallel, but in our context,” in reference to Geter’s piece about civil rights songs.
“I think it’s important to bring out the challenges to our contemporary social engagement,” believes Rei, referencing daily life, politics, and our country. “It’s important that music and the arts should reflect what’s happening in our culture, not just what’s happened in the past.” Those are the connections that make the arts so relevant to modern society. “It’s exciting because our loyal patrons are also on-board. They see that storyline; they hear the connections. And for them, it’s not just eye-opening, but they are expecting it now. So, we’re bringing in new and younger audiences, but we’re also continuing this tradition of great symphonic music.”
The movement to modernize classical music with greater inclusivity and acknowledgment of living composers might seem like a trendy oxymoron. Indeed, it has seen an uptick since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the widespread social issues that have come to the forefront in recent years. “But it is something that we have been doing since 2017!” Rei is proud to say, “We are gaining national attraction from other organizations. People are tracking us, the Fresno Phil, and my programs, what we’re doing across the country. What I’m doing.”
Showcasing said diversity has been on Rei’s mind for a while. “I was delighted to see the diversity of this community,” Rei reflects. She was familiar with Southern California because of her college years, although she really got to know the Central Valley when she joined the Fresno Philharmonic. “I was just thrilled to see, to witness … that there is this wonderful diversity of immigrants and of farmers and the agricultural community. It is really an incredible story to tell, and I felt that we, as the Fresno Philharmonic, could really highlight that.” Having the support of the community has empowered Rei’s mission—pushing something that’s been in the back of her mind to the forefront, to reality.
Rei has worked tirelessly to build first-time and unique connections with the Fresno community with an eye toward reaching different audiences. The Bitwise shows are one such example of this, as getting the Fresno Phil out of the Saroyan Theatre and into the community is imperative to its evolution. She has reimagined the pre-concert and post-concert experience with the creation of the ever-popular Green Room (an online series where people can get to know the musicians) and Stay Tuned (a behind-the-scenes talk-back session led by Rei with guest artists and Fresno Phil members after the Masterworks concerts).
One of the events Rei is most excited about for the 2022-2023 season is the return of the Farm to Fiddle Dinner Party, which will again be held at the San Joaquin River Parkway barn. “This is a great way for us to be in the community,” she shares of the reimagined family-style dining experience that unites the Central Valley’s signature highlights, food and music, as well as local wine and craft beer. The performance for the evening features all fiddle music. “It is really a fundraising event for music programs and education programs that the Fresno Philharmonic does,” which Rei is proud to say reaches 11,500 students throughout the Central Valley yearly.
In this New Year, Rei has some very exciting debuts with other orchestras as a guest conductor. “It’s amazing to work with different orchestras across the country because I get to see what they’re doing and what their organizations are doing, and then bring it to Fresno.” Considering that the Fresno Phil’s 70th anniversary is just around the corner, “I’m programming some really great projects that are coming up, especially in the next couple of years … Right now, we’re in our 68th season.”
Rei’s work takes her all over, making for an unusual schedule. However, in her family, she’s not alone in that. “My husband’s a musician. He’s also a conductor; so, our schedules are insane,” shares Rei. She and her husband, Brian Dollinger, have two children: Sophie and Constantine, who are also musicians. “They have been so amazingly supportive of my career, especially my husband,” Rei gushes. “We love hiking and one other thing that I love to do when I travel is find local restaurants that are amazing and eat locally and discover new places like that.”
Although there is a preconceived image of conductors/music directors as old, gray-haired male figures, it is not a gender-specific position. “It is who is on the podium that counts, right?” says Rei. “Women belong in these positions and it’s not because they’re women, but because of their knowledge and expertise. I am so thrilled to be in Fresno and to be the Music Director of the Fresno Philharmonic. I’m honored they chose me—that already says a lot about this community and the forward-thinking of this community. And I think they trusted me to bring the best out of this orchestra, this organization, and I’m doing everything I can to honor that.”
“Being the Music Director of the Fresno Philharmonic means this is my orchestra. I want this orchestra to not only succeed but to grow, and that means I have to grow, too,” understands Rei. The greater Fresno area gets to benefit from her desire to never stop learning, to always be better. “We want to continue to enrich and transform lives of the residents of the Central Valley. It’s very important to me through live performances of great music. To me, music really brings us together. I mean, the orchestra is a community in itself, but we can’t perform without our audience. So, the audience is part of our family. I want to keep growing our audiences and keep growing the family in this community.” Come see the Fresno Philharmonic, and experience the musical magic that Rei Hotoda is creating in the Central Valley.
Editorial Director Lauren Barisic
Photographer Ellie Koleen
Fashion Stylist Alma Wolverton
Hair Anna Peters
Makeup Tiffany Simons
Ellie Koleen
Photographer
Ellie is a lifestyle, wedding, and brand photographer based in Fresno, California. An artist behind the lens, her trademark airy, light-filled style and masterful camera angles make her work easily recognizable. She uses her love for all things design related as inspiration for her work. The Fresno Bee named Ellie Best Photographer for the People’s Choice Awards in 2018 and 2019.
Alma Wolverton
Fashion Stylist
Alma is an editorial stylist, closet editor, personal shopper, image consultant, and boutique owner, based in California’s San Joaquin Valley. A small-town girl, she was raised with an impeccable work ethic and determination to achieve her dreams. Today, Alma owns and operates Pum Bum Society in Fresno, where she takes enormous pride in bringing the latest and most exclusive looks, brands, and trends, that both celebrities and fashion experts alike are wearing, to the Central Valley.
