As assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra under its Music Director Andris Nelsons, Anna Rakitina has become a much-loved member of the BSO family. She is only the second woman in the orchestra’s history to be awarded this position.
In addition, she was the 2019–20 Dudamel Fellow of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and conducted the orchestra’s youth concerts at Walt Disney Concert Hall as well as its education and community programs such as Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA).
Following her highly acclaimed Tanglewood Festival debut in the summer of 2021, Anna Rakitina again appeared in the subscription series of the Boston Symphony in the 2021–22 season. Further highlights include her debuts with the New York Philharmonic, Orchestre National de Lille, Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Elgin Symphony Orchestra, Pasadena Symphony Orchestra, and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. The 2022–23 season will see her appear with the Baltimore, Indianapolis, and Cincinnati symphony orchestras; the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra; Musikkollegium Winterthur in Switzerland; Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France; Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo; Tonkünstler Orchestra in Austria and the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra, among others.
She has worked with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Lucerne Festival Strings, Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne, Biel Solothurn Symphony Orchestra in Switzerland, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Jenaer Philharmonie, George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra, Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, Meiningen Court Orchestra, National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia, the Critical Orchester in Germany, Taipei Symphony Orchestra, National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra, Royal Northern College of Music Chamber Orchestra and the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra.
Born in Moscow to a Ukrainian father and a Russian mother, Anna Rakitina grew up in a musical family. She began her education as a violinist and soprano before she turned to conducting at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where she studied with Stanislav Diachenko, assistant to Gennady Rozhdestvensky. From 2016 to 2018, she studied conducting with Ulrich Windfuhr at the Hochschule für Musik and Theater Hamburg, where she graduated with a diploma. During her studies, she conducted stage performances of Eugene Onegin, Iolanta, Aleko and The Rape of Lucretia, and wrote her doctoral thesis on Rachmaninov.
As a participant of the Lucerne Festival Academy Conducting Fellowship, Anna Rakitina took part in master classes with Alan Gilbert in 2016 and Bernard Haitink in 2017. She also participated in master classes with Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Vladimir Jurowski, and Johannes Schlaefli.
