City Opera Appoints Conductor Gordon Gerrard As New Artistic Director

Gordon draws on a wealth of artistic and administrative experience as a conductor of Canada's leading orchestras and opera companies, a pianist, and an educator.

By: Jun. 06, 2023
City Opera Appoints Conductor Gordon Gerrard As New Artistic Director

The Board of Directors of City Opera Vancouver (City Opera) has announced the appointment of Canadian conductor Gordon Gerrard as the organization's next Artistic Director.

The appointment is the culmination of extensive community consultation and a six-month search, following the retirement of City Opera's Founding Artistic Director, Dr. Charles Barber, in January.

“Gordon's impressive background as a conductor, opera specialist and educator, coupled with his imaginative programming and community engagement experience, bring a dynamic perspective to this pivotal leadership role,” says Board President Janet Lea. “His commitment to cultivating community and telling compelling stories that illuminate contemporary challenges resonates strongly with City Opera's values, as does his passion for making music accessible to everyone. It's an exciting new chapter in City Opera's history.”

“City Opera's successful track record reflects its understanding of meaningful community connection and the power of great operatic storytelling,” says Gerrard. “I'm honoured to join this respected organization and build on its inspired traditions of collaboration, inclusion and impactful music-making. It's a perfect time to seize new possibilities for creating modern engaged chamber opera experiences that enrich the cultural life of Vancouver and solidify City Opera's place as a vital contributor to the Canadian experience.

Gordon draws on a wealth of artistic and administrative experience as a conductor of Canada's leading orchestras and opera companies, a pianist, and an educator. Currently in his sixth season as Music Director of the Regina Symphony Orchestra, he is well known as a proponent of innovative and inclusionary programming that explores social change and community engagement. His transformative work with aspiring musicians at such organizations as Calgary Opera, Opera Nuova and Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity also has ignited the careers of numerous emerging artists.

The former Vancouver resident is a familiar presence in the city's cultural and educational communities, having served from 2012 to 2016 as the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra's Assistant and Associate Conductor, under the mentorship of Maestro Bramwell Tovey. He continues to lead the orchestra as a guest conductor and enjoys a long association with Vancouver Opera and UBC Opera.

Gordon will take up his new role with City Opera in September 2023, in tandem with his ongoing leadership of the Regina Symphony Orchestra.

A detailed biography is available here and you can also visit his website.

City Opera is British Columbia's first professional chamber opera company, whose focus includes giving voice to equity-denied groups through its choice of artists, stories and socially-relevant themes. Now in its 16th year, the company has gained a stellar reputation for bringing accessible chamber opera to underserved communities and for commissioning dynamic new work that highlights contemporary cultural issues.

The company produces and presents opera, both live and online, spanning early classical repertoire to new works created in our time. To date, City Opera has given more than 200 free pop-up opera concerts and special events, 71 in the Downtown Eastside, alongside 13 full-length mainstage productions, including five commissioned operas.



RELATED STORIES - Opera

1
Review Roundup: DEAD MAN WALKING at the Metropolitan Opera Photo
Review Roundup: DEAD MAN WALKING at the Metropolitan Opera

xThe reviews are in for the premiere production of the new Met season, Dead Man Walking. American composer Jake Heggie’s masterpiece, the most widely performed new opera of the last 20 years, has its highly anticipated Met premiere, in a haunting new production by Ivo van Hove.

2
Review: Orth and Moscovitch Stunning MADHOUSE Tells of Women Past the Verge of a Nervous B Photo
Review: Orth and Moscovitch Stunning MADHOUSE Tells of Women Past the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

When composer Rene Orth came across the story of investigative reporter Nellie Bly’s expose of the abuse of women at an asylum in New York at the end of the 19th century, she immediately knew that “this story needed to be told as an opera.” She was right. The result of her efforts, with the first-rate creative team including librettist Hannah Moscovitch, is 10 DAYS IN A MADHOUSE, a 90-minute work that opened Opera Philadelphia’s festival (this year, called O23) with its world premiere at the Wilma Theatre.

3
The Metropolitan Opera: LIVE IN HD 2023–2024 Season Comes To Bay Street Th Photo
The Metropolitan Opera: LIVE IN HD 2023–2024 Season Comes To Bay Street Theater This October

Bay Street Theater & Sag Harbor Center for the Arts has announced that it will be screening the Metropolitan Opera's 2023–2024 season LIVE IN HD on their big  screen. Running October 2023 through May 2024, Bay Street audiences are able to experience 9 spectacular productions, presented live directly from the Met Opera's stage in New York City.

4
Joyce DiDonato Returns To Lead Public Master Class For Young Singers, October 22–24 Photo
Joyce DiDonato Returns To Lead Public Master Class For Young Singers, October 22–24

Mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato returns to Carnegie Hall's Resnick Education Wing for her popular series of master classes for young professional opera singers from Sunday, October 22 through Tuesday, October 24, 2023.

More Hot Stories For You

Videos


#repshow# in #getregions.name[i]# SongStudio: Graham Johnson Master Class
Carnegie Hall (1/22-1/22)
#repshow# in #getregions.name[i]# SongStudio: Renée Fleming Master Class
Carnegie Hall (1/26-1/26)
#repshow# in #getregions.name[i]# Justin Austin / Howard Watkins
Carnegie Hall (3/05-3/05)
#repshow# in #getregions.name[i]# Sir Bryn Terfel
Carnegie Hall (11/14-11/14)
#repshow# in #getregions.name[i]# Camille’s Rainbow
Carnegie Hall (10/31-10/31)
#repshow# in #getregions.name[i]# Matthias Goerne / Evgeny Kissin
Carnegie Hall (4/25-4/25)
#repshow# in #getregions.name[i]# Regula Mühlemann / Tatiana Korsunskaya
Carnegie Hall (5/08-5/08)
#repshow# in #getregions.name[i]# Joyce DiDonato Master Class
Carnegie Hall (10/22-10/22)
#repshow# in #getregions.name[i]# SongStudio: Young Artists Recital
Carnegie Hall (1/27-1/27)
#repshow# in #getregions.name[i]# SongStudio: Nicholas Phan Master Class
Carnegie Hall (1/23-1/23)
VIEW ALL SHOWS  ADD A SHOW