Full biography
Mostly Classical Performing Arts is beyond honored to welcome the extraordinary conductor Maestro Gregory Buchalter.
Maestro Buchalter began his illustrious career at the Metropolitan Opera, where for many seasons he served as a conductor, leading the Met's musicians and working extensively with the Metropolitan Opera Chorus; the position of "Maestro di Banda" was created there especially for him. At the Met he helped prepare several world premieres, including John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles, Philip Glass's The Voyage and John Harbison's The Great Gatsby.
Today he is Music Director and Conductor of Varna International and Vero Beach Opera, and Music Director of Opera Fairbanks and Opera Camerata of Washington, and he is in demand as a guest conductor on both sides of the Atlantic. He has conducted at Florida Grand Opera (A Streetcar Named Desire, Tosca and Pagliacci), Opera Orlando, Mobile Opera, Amarillo Opera, Pacific Northwest Opera and the New England Conservatory, and with the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra, the South Florida Symphony and the Charleston Symphony. He has also served as Music and Artistic Director of Opera Las Vegas.
International Stages
Maestro Buchalter has conducted Salome at the Savonlinna Opera Festival in Finland with Maria Ewing and Helga Dernesch, Die Fledermaus at the Vienna Volksoper, Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail at the Spoleto Festival, Eugene Onegin with the New Opera World Festival in Moscow, Così fan tutte with the Mediterranean Opera Festival in Sicily, and Don Giovanni in Belgrade. He has also led Verdi's Requiem in performances across Italy.
At the Varna International Festival he has conducted Carmen, Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi, Così fan tutte, Le nozze di Figaro, L'enfant et les sortilèges and La rondine, as well as the Bulgarian premieres of Kurt Weill's Street Scene and Bernstein's Candide. With Teatro Lirico d'Europa he has conducted Il barbiere di Siviglia, Rigoletto, La bohème and Madama Butterfly.
Premieres and Firsts
He conducted the American premieres of Mercadante's I due Figaro, Von Winter's Das Labyrinth and Donizetti's Olivo e Pasquale in New York, and was the first American to conduct with the Kazakhstan State Opera, including a televised gala concert for the President of Kazakhstan.
He has also served as Chorus Master for Santa Fe Opera, the Bregenz Festival in Austria, the Theater des Westens in Berlin and the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra.
