New Haven Symphony Orchestra

With a career that ranges from symphony to opera, Broadway to chamber music, Conductor GERALD STEICHEN has established himself as one of America’s most versatile young musicians. He has conducted the Boston Pops, the Utah Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, New York City Opera Orchestra in concert, New York Pops, Hartford Symphony, Wheeling Symphony and the Eastern Connecticut Symphony. His international credits include the NDR Orchestra - Hanover (Germany), the NRK Orchestra (Oslo, Norway), and the Tokyo City Symphony. Maestro Steichen currently serves as the Associate Conductor of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, conducting classics concerts, the Pops series, Young People's Concerts, and their summer parks concert series. He makes his debut this season with the Ridgefield Symphony and the Columbus (Ohio) Symphony.

Steichen made his Lincoln Center debut at the State Theatre conducting performances of La bohème for New York City Opera. His most recent performances were of Jonathan Miller's production of The Elixir of Love and a new production of The Pirates of Penzance. Also for NYCO, he conducted Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking, two different productions of The Mikado, Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella and Rachel Portman's The Little Prince. Steichen served as an on-stage pianist for NYCO's acclaimed productions of Porgy and Bess and Carmina Burana, and at the harpsichord for Platee and Stephen Wadsworth's magical production of Handel's Xerxes.

He has appeared with the Utah Opera (A Little Night Music, HMS Pinafore, The Gondoliers, The Mikado, The Pirates of Penzance, and this season's La cenerentola); Glimmerglass Opera (Bluebeard); Anchorage Opera as Principal Guest Conductor (Il barbiere di Siviglia, Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and this season's Il trovatore); New Jersey Opera Theatre (Falstaff); Opera East Texas as Artistic Advisor (Madama Butterfly, Tosca, Carmen); and Utah Festival Opera (Les contes d'Hoffmann, The Magic Flute, Il barbiere di Siviglia, La cenerentola and Handel's Giulio Cesare) and Yale Opera (Gianni Schicchi and Orphee aux Enfers).

His passion for education in the arts has led to numerous guest appearances with student orchestras and choruses throughout the United States; at New York's Lincoln Center, he has spent eighteen years with the "Meet the Artist" series as conductor, clinician, and pianist. With a strong commitment to new music and emerging composers, Steichen conducts readings each season of new American operas as part of City Opera's VOX American Composer's Showcase, and serves as conductor for the New York-based Azure Chamber Ensemble.

No stranger to the stage, Mr. Steichen played the role of "Manny the Accompanist" in Terrence McNally's Tony Award-winning Broadway production of Master Class, starring Dixie Carter as Maria Callas. And as Associate Conductor he toured nationally with The Phantom of the Opera, Lucy Simon's The Secret Garden, and with Cathy Rigby in Peter Pan. He conducted Barnum for Music Theatre of Wichita, Kansas, led the world premiere of Tom Sawyer for Music Theatre Works in New York City, and spent two years conducting the Broadway production of CATS, leading the final public performance of that show.

Jerry is a native of Tonkawa, Oklahoma; and holds degrees from Northern Oklahoma College, Oklahoma City University and the University of Southern California. He was selected for the prestigious Merola Program at San Francisco Opera, and spent a summer at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara.