Akiko Fujimoto

Akiko Fujimoto is a Japanese-born American conductor. Since 2019 she has been the music director of the Mid-Texas Symphony, and in 2026 she was appointed as the music director of the Symphony of Northwest Arkansas. She has held positions as associate conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra and the San Antonio Symphony, conducting associate for the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, and cover conductor for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and has appeared as a guest conductor for the National Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, Florida Orchestra, Fort Wayne Philharmonic Orchestra, Corpus Christi Symphony, Lexington Philharmonic Orchestra, and Vermont Symphony Orchestra. Fujimoto became the first woman to hold a full-time conducting position on the artistic staff of the San Antonio Symphony when she was hired as its assistant conductor in 2011. In 2017, she became the second woman to conduct the Minnesota Orchestra. In 2019, Fujimoto became the first woman conductor for the Mid-Texas Symphony.

Education Fujimoto earned a Bachelors of Arts degree in Psychology and Music at Stanford University.

On September 15, 2019, Fujimoto had her first public concert with the Mid-Texas Symphony at Texas Lutheran University in Seguin as a guest conductor. In October 2019, she was hired to be the Mid-Texas Symphony as their next music director,

In 2021, Fujimoto was one of seven candidates who applied to lead Vermont Symphony Orchestra. She was a guest conductor on October 30, 2021, where she closed the Vermont Symphony Orchestra program with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21 and Suad Bushnaq’s “Sampson’s Walk on Air.”