Gerald Steichen, piano

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 musicians.  He has conducted the Boston Pops, the Utah Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, New York City Opera Orchestra, 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.
 
Steichen made his Lincoln Center début at the State Theatre conducting performances of La bohème for New York City Opera. 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.

His passion for education in the arts has led to numerous guest appearances with student orchestras and choruses throughout the US. At New York’s Lincoln Center, he has spent several years with the “Meet the Artist” series as conductor, clinician, and pianist.

No stranger to the stage, 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. 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 première 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.

Steichen is a native of Tonkawa, Oklahoma; and holds degrees from Northern Oklahoma College, Oklahoma City University and the University of Southern California.