The 2026-27 Symphony of Northwest Arkansas season begins Saturday night with a concert titled Rites of Renewal: The Firebird. We asked Ben Harris, executive director of SoNA, and Akiko Fujimoto, music director and conductor of the symphony, to come to the Center for Public Radio. Harris says Saturday night's concert is not just a season opener, but the launch of a new era with the baton in Fujimoto's hand as a new conductor.
Ben Harris: We're very excited to introduce her to our audience, some of whom met her back in January when she auditioned. But this is her first time with us as our artistic leader. So that's really exciting for us. And it's, as I said, the beginning of a new era.
Kellams: Akiko, how did it feel on the eve of a new era?
Akiko Fujimoto: I'm very excited. I'm very honored. And I want to say a big thank you to the community for choosing me, for hiring me, for this big job. And the best way I know how to do that is through music.
Kellams: Let's go through the program, starting with the Roman Carnival Overture.
Fujimoto: Sure. Well, this is a very exciting overture that used to be part of an opera that flopped, but the overture was so good that Berlioz kept performing it by itself and gave it a new title. It's kind of a fireworks-on-all-cylinders kind of opener for an opera, but also for the whole season. And that's why I chose it.
It's got great solos from the English horn, the viola section and just everybody in the orchestra has something very exciting. There's lyrical stuff, but there's also very fast-paced Italian dancing going on, so it's very celebratory. And that's what I wanted for the first concert.
Kellams: Aaron Copland, the Four Dance Episodes from... I mean, this is just classical, classical music.
Fujimoto: Yes. So who knew that a Jewish guy from Brooklyn could write cowboy, cowgirl music so well? This was his second cowboy or cowgirl Western ballet after "Billy the Kid."
I got to meet the current artistic director of the Martha Graham Company. Martha Graham was a big collaborator with Aaron Copland. Now, this ballet was not written for Martha. But I asked this artistic director, how do you pronounce, is it "Rodeo" or "Rodeo"? Because I've heard it both ways. And she said "Rodeo" because the Russian dancers that were hired to dance it were kind of making fun of it, in a good way, because rodeo doesn't seem like a snooty thing. And yet they're casting it in this fancy medium art form of ballet, classical ballet.
So just the juxtaposition of American West with classical ballet is what makes this piece so good. And Aaron Copland's music is rhythmic, it's energetic. And it's about a cowgirl who's trying to fit in to a club of cowboys and not having a good time, having a hard time.
And that's not why I chose it, but I thought it was very appropriate because, as a new person in an organization, there's always this period of initiation. "Welcome, but then this is how we do things around here," kind of. And I thought this music, this piece is perfect.
And also there's some very exciting but also very poignant music where she's feeling alone or lonely or not fitting in. And of course, at the end, she wins the heart of the guy, the cowboy that she was after and she's welcomed into the fold. It's a really great story. And the four dances from "Rodeo" really express what it's like to be kind of the new kid on the block, but even if you're different, you somehow fit in. And so it's a really fun suite of dances from that ballet.
Kellams: If you're thinking energetic, if you're thinking celebratory, a bacchanal fits right in.
Fujimoto: Well, I don't know on public radio if I'm allowed to say what a bacchanal is.
Kellams: But we know.
Fujimoto: Yes, but it comes from a religiously inspired opera, "Samson and Delilah." And it's one of Camille Saint-Saëns' greatest hits, the opera. I've read somewhere that the opera is worth seeing just to hear the bacchanal, which is a big group dance. Every opera has a scene or two where the entire cast dances, and it's usually like a big party. So this is a type of a party. I'm not going to say what kind. But this is a big party before Samson brings down the whole temple.
I love playing this piece, and I thought it's a good way to close the first half because the Copland, we are doing four different dances from it. It's kind of an experience. It's a 90-minute experience and it's a great experience, but it's a lot of work for the audience to kind of adapt themselves to the four different moods. So I thought, why not end with a singular... it's kind of one giant crescendo, a singular experience that kind of cleanses the palate and gets you ready for the second half, which is Stravinsky, the Firebird Suite.
This is one continuous 30-minute suite, but it's broken into many different parts. Some of the greatest music from the ballet. And Stravinsky's "Firebird" was his breakout piece. This is the piece that made him famous. And it was for a ballet, but the music was so good once again that it got extracted into concert suites. And we're doing one of them.
But it begins in a dark forest at night. And then at the end, of course, everything works out. Firebird saves the day and everything is happy again, instead of dark and somber. So the story of "Firebird" is very much a story of a dark story turned into happy ending and triumph. And it's about, when you help somebody out, and if you're good to somebody, or in case of if you're good to a bird with a golden feather, that bird is going to save you when you really need her. And so it's a great story of that partnership and kind of getting out of a really bad situation.
And I thought that any time, I think this piece gets used... I just saw that Gustavo Dudamel did the "Firebird" at the end of his first concert with the New York Phil as a music director. And I think there's a reason why so many of us like to do it at the beginning when we're starting something, because it is very much a story of renewal and transformation, and it gives you this feeling of starting over.
And I know I'm walking into SoNA at a really great time. But also when you have a new artistic leader, it's a new beginning also. So I felt like the minute I got this job, I knew I wanted to start the first concert with Stravinsky's "Firebird." And it showcases everybody in the orchestra. It's kind of a spectacular showcase of the orchestra. So I'm excited.
Kellams: It's not just a new era, Ben. It's a new year. If I was a 1920s baseball sportswriter, I'd say it's the lid lifter. And there's the subscription series, but there's so much more that's going to happen in the next several months, right?
Harris: We always have a lot going on at SoNA. In addition to the MainStage series, we have our SoNA Beyond series of community outreach concerts where we play small ensemble performances all over Northwest Arkansas. And particularly with that series, we do a lot of outreach for young listeners. So young families with young children who want to be exposed to this type of music, who maybe have never seen these kind of instruments before. For a lot of young kids, this is their first exposure to that.
So we're going to be touring all the regional libraries with a new arrangement of "The Magic Flute" by Mozart. So this is a reduced version for six players that was written by our music librarian, Richard Bobo. And we pair that with a book reading. So it's great for little kids and their families. It's only about 20 minutes long. Great first experience with classical music and seeing these instruments up close. So we got a lot of those performances coming up, and they're all listed on our website, sonamusic.org.
Kellams: All right. This first concert, as you said, everyone in the orchestra gets a chance to shine. There's some workouts, going bonkers with bacchanal before the intermission. I'm curious, in that intermission, how do you or the musicians, how do you come down, but then get ready for Stravinsky?
Fujimoto: This sounds very unromantic, but we just make the sausage.
Kellams: Right.
Fujimoto: And so we got three sausages done, and we got one more big sausage to turn out. And we're very work-oriented folk. And playing in an orchestra, somebody compared it to me, it's a sport. Playing an orchestra is a sport. It's a sporting event for the musicians and myself. And it's a lot to coordinate, but it's also a lot of excitement and energy built into one group.
So I think during the break, everyone's just kind of chilling out, relaxing, chatting with each other. And then we are very task-oriented folk, to a fault. So basically, for me, the conductor's work, 90% of it is done before the performance. So at the performance, I'm just there to enjoy myself and to put on a really good show. But the hard work has been done already. So the rehearsal and the studying before the rehearsals is the stressful part for me, and for the musicians too. So I think we're just there to have a good time.
And you know what? At halftime, not to keep using the sports analogy, we're excited because we usually have the big piece ahead of us and we're just there to finish everything up on a high note. So the intermission is a good time.
Harris: Yeah, it is a happy time, especially backstage for the players, because with SoNA being a regional orchestra, that means that we pull players in from all over the place. And I can tell you as a musician that when you're on the breaks, you get social time with your friends that you don't see outside of concerts.
So it's interesting that when you finish the first half and you go backstage, a lot of times there's a little bit of, "Oh, that went well. Oh, that was fun." And then you're just kind of hanging with your friends until it's time to go back out and start warming up again and gradually getting yourself back into work mode for the second half.
Kellams: Well, I'm looking forward to both halves and the entire season. Welcome.
Fujimoto: Thank you.
Kellams: And come back before A Very SoNA Christmas.
Harris: Absolutely.
Kellams: Akiko Fujimoto is the music director and conductor of the Symphony of Northwest Arkansas. Ben Harris is SoNA's executive director. They discuss Saturday night's season opener, Rites of Renewal: The Firebird, at the Carver Center for Public Radio last week. More information about the concert and the season as a whole can be found at sonamusic.org.
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