KELLY KUO - Conductor, MADAMA BUTTERFLY



Conductor Kelly Kuo has worked with organizations in the United States and abroad including Houston Grand Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Seattle Opera and the Festival Euro Mediterraneo, having prepared a repertoire of over 40 operas in a remarkably short period of time. In a recent performance, Mr. Kuo was praised by Tim Mangan in the Orange County Register for his "firm hand and rhythmic liveliness." Kelly Kuo is a gifted conductor with a secure grounding in the instrumental world as an accomplished pianist and clarinetist and has had tremendous success working intimately with both instrumentalists and singers in an astonishingly broad spectrum of repertoire.

 

The 2006-2007 season finds Kelly Kuo conducting Rachel Portman's The Little Prince for Tulsa Opera and Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe for Lyric Opera San Diego. It also includes assisting John DeMain on Porgy and Bess at Los Angeles Opera and Opera Pacific, and additional work with Cincinnati Opera and Kentucky Opera, a voice masterclass at the University of Oklahoma, chamber music concerts with members of the Cincinnati Symphony and Pacific Symphony, and a return engagement as Music Director of Opera International's Gala Concert in Strathmore Hall. Future engagements include a return to Rising Star Opera Theater to conduct Il barbiere di Siviglia and leading Madama Butterfly for his Eugene Opera debut in 2008. In the fall of 2007, Mr. Kuo joins the faculty of Xavier University as Adjunct Professor of Conducting, leading the Xavier Chamber Orchestra.

Highlights of recent seasons include conducting Così fan tutte and Rimsky Korsakov's Mozart and Salieri for the Rising Star Opera Theater, La traviata for Opera Pacific, and gala concerts for Wichita Grand Opera. Mr. Kuo also served as Cover Conductor for Los Angeles Opera's production of A Little Night Music (starring Victor Garber and Zoe Caldwell) and a new production of Candide at the Festival Euro Mediterraneo in Italy. During his tenure as Artistic Administrator for Opera Pacific, he conducted a workshop of David DiChiera's new opera Cyrano de Bergerac (in collaboration with Opera Pacific, Michigan Opera Theatre and Florida Grand Opera) and served as assistant and cover conductor for over twenty productions.

Kelly Kuo is a versatile musician who is equally at home with symphonic and chamber music as he is with the operatic repertoire. Mr. Kuo has appeared as a concert pianist throughout the United States performing over 75 works from the chamber music repertoire and he has over a dozen concerto performances to his credit. As an orchestral keyboardist he has performed with the Houston Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Pacific Symphony, Madison Symphony, Eugene Symphony and the New Music Consort under such conductors as Robert Spano, Kurt Masur and Zdenak Macal. Praised in The Oregonian as an “admirably self-possessed musician with a future,” Mr. Kuo recently performed Louis Moreau Gottschalk's Grand Tarantelle for piano and orchestra for American Ballet Theatre principals Ethan Stiefel and Gillian Murphy at the gala grand opening of the Overture Center for the Arts in Madison, Wisconsin. In addition, he is increasingly becoming a favorite collaborator for emerging young singers and has recently accompanied rising American soprano Anna Christy in recital in Los Angeles and Omaha. Mr. Kuo also regularly plays harpsichord continuo for the operas of Mozart and Rossini.

A champion of contemporary music, Kelly Kuo has participated in the world premieres of works by Richard Danielpour, Carlisle Floyd and Jake Heggie as well as the New York premiere of works by Henri Dutilleux and Stanislaus Skrowaczewski. In addition, Mr. Kuo has edited the full score and piano-vocal score for Jake Heggie's “Dead Man Walking” and “The End of the Affair” and can be heard on the premiere recording of Daniel Catán's opera La hija de Rappaccini for Newport Classics.

Of Taiwanese heritage, American-born Kelly Kuo was raised in Hermiston, Oregon. He began his musical studies on the violin at the age of five and made his debut as a piano soloist with the Walla Walla Symphony five years later. Mr. Kuo studied piano with Dean Kramer at the University of Oregon where he earned a Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, majoring in both music and Chinese. He received his Master of Music in Piano from the Manhattan School of Music where he was the first student in the history of the school to be honored with two commencement awards: the Saul Braverman Award for outstanding achievement in music theory and the Helen Cohn Award, given to the outstanding graduating pianist in chamber music. His teachers there included Byron Janis (Vladimir Horowitz's first student) and Warren Jones, the acclaimed vocal accompanist. Mr. Kuo is an alumnus of the Houston Grand Opera Studio, where he studied vocal coaching and conducting.