About
American conductor Geoffrey Larson is the founding Music Director of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra. At home on both the symphonic and operatic stage, he also serves as Assistant Conductor and Chorus Master of Berkshire Opera Festival. Geoffrey's adventurous, multi-genre projects have harnessed the storytelling power, rich variety, and universal relevance of orchestral and operatic music to engage new audiences.
In December 2021, Geoffrey was awarded second prize in the International Orchestral Conducting Competition “UAL” in Spain, after competing with 126 conductors from 26 countries. He was also named a semifinalist in the Arthur Nikisch International Conducting Competition and a finalist in the Lanyí International Conducting Competition. He has conducted orchestras such as the Windsor Symphony, South Bend Symphony, Omaha Symphony, Alabama Symphony, Spokane Symphony, Bainbridge Symphony, Northwest Mahler Festival, National Radio and Television Orchestra of Albania, and Pleven Philharmonic (Bulgaria).
With a deep commitment to the music of our time, he has given the premieres of numerous works and has collaborated with composers such as Anthony Davis, Gabriel Prokofiev, Erberk Eryılmaz, Nancy Galbraith, and Reza Vali. Passionate about equity of access and increased inclusion in classical music, Geoffrey’s performances with the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra each feature works by composers of under-represented groups, such as women and people of color.
In the world of opera, he has collaborated with artists such as Tamara Wilson, Sebastian Catana, Caroline Worra, and Daniel Belcher. Working closely with baritone Sherrill Milnes, he served as Assistant Conductor for Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Estates Theatre in Prague, the site of the work’s premiere. He recently collaborated with soprano Laquita Mitchell and members of the Seattle Symphony for a new staging by Music of Remembrance of Tom Cipullo’s opera Josephine. His other opera credits include Puccini's La bohème, Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Chabrier’s L’étoile, Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos, Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, Tom Cipullo’s Glory Denied, and Verdi’s La Traviata, Rigoletto, and Falstaff.
Geoffrey is currently completing a doctoral thesis at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music under the mentorship of Arthur Fagen and Thomas Wilkins. He has served as Assistant Conductor of IU Opera and Ballet Theatre, working with David Neely, Kevin Murphy, and Walter Huff. He previously studied with the late Robert Page at Carnegie Mellon University, where he conducted performances and recording sessions of the Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic. His recording with the Carnegie Mellon Contemporary Music Ensemble appears on NAXOS Records.
Geoffrey has participated in master classes at London’s Royal Academy of Music at the personal selection of George Hurst, and he studied at the Pierre Monteux School under the tutelage of Michael Jinbo. During a concentrated half year of study in Vienna, Austria, he studied harmony with Gerold Gruber at Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien and opera conducting with Wolfgang Harrer. He has benefited from additional studies with Nicolás Pasquet, Rodolfo Saglimbeni, Carl St. Clair, James Ross, Peter Erös, Ronald Zollman, and Michael Christie.
“Geoffrey Larson conducted with passion and precision, and together with cast and orchestra delivered the drama, as well as the beauty, of the score.”
“Geoffrey Larson galvanized his band...Musically and dramatically, this performance justified the audience’s fervent acclaim.”
Upcoming
Performances
Video Gallery
SPECIAL PROJECTS
Gutiérrez Critical Edition: El Macías
The first composer of opera in the Caribbean was Felipe Gutiérrez y Espinosa, a Puerto Rican composer who lived 1825-1899. An accomplished composer of sacred vocal music in the Romantic era, he also wrote concert overtures, secular songs, and three operas. Only one of the three survives: El Macías, composed in 1870. Gutiérrez's complete manuscript, discovered in the Real Biblioteca Madrid in 1970, is now the primary source for the opera’s first complete performing edition, currently being developed by Geoffrey Larson. Geoffrey is grateful for the support of the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and research director Dr. Jillian Rogers in the creation of this critical edition, as well as editorial support from Natalia Santaliz.
Poster by David Goitía from the only staged production of El Macías on record: Opera San Juan, 1977. Courtesy Museo de Historia, Antropología y Arte del Recinto de Río Piedras, University of Puerto Rico.