Taichi Fukumura is the Music Director of the Illinois Symphony Orchestra and the newly appointed Assistant Conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra. A rising Japanese-American conductor acclaimed for his dynamic stage presence and musical finesse, Fukumura is the Second Prize Winner of The Mahler Competition 2023 and a four-time recipient of the Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award (2021-2024).

Fukumura has served as the Assistant Conductor of the Chicago Sinfonietta where he previously received mentorship from Music Director Mei-Ann Chen as a Freeman Conducting Fellow. He has also been invited by Barbara Hannigan to assist at the Munich Philharmonic and the Musikkollegium Winterthur in Switzerland. Other recent and upcoming international engagements include guest conducting debuts with the Bamberg Symphony and the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony. Other recent guest debuts include the Utah Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, Chicago Philharmonic, Eugene Symphony, Delaware Symphony, and Colorado Springs Philharmonic. He also returned to the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra as guest conductor after leading the orchestra in over 110 concerts as Assistant Conductor under Music Director Robert Spano.