Thursday, April 10, 2025
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Our Musical Theatre Matinee series features guest lectures from some of the Valley’s foremost experts in musical theatre, and include live performances by outstanding local singers and dancers!
Join ASU Artistic Director of Music Theatre and Opera, Brian DeMaris, who will compare and contrast two composer/lyricists who transformed the music theatre of their respective eras. This presentation looks at both artists’ lives and works and with the impact they each had on opera and musical theatre of their respective generations and beyond. The presentation will include performances by ASU musical theatre and opera students Makayla Flocken, Tre Moore, Josh Pike, and Molly Virtue!
This event is generously sponsored by Bob and Charlotte Otto.
Instructor
Brian DeMaris
Equally at home in opera, musical theatre, symphony, ballet and pops, and involved with the development of over two dozen new works, Brian DeMaris has led productions with Anchorage Opera, Arizona Opera, Opera Columbus, El Paso Opera, Mill City Summer Opera, Syracuse Opera, Tri-Cities Opera, Charlottesville Opera, American Lyric Theatre and American Opera Projects. He has served as Principal Conductor of Anchorage Opera, Music Director of Mill City Summer Opera, and was previously associate conductor of the New York City Opera, assistant conductor at Florida Grand Opera and Glimmerglass Opera, and served on the music staff of Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. He has led concerts with the St. Cloud Symphony, Music St. Croix, the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra, Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra, Syracuse Symphoria, and the Israel Chamber Orchestra, and has performed at the United Nations, the Aspen Music Festival, Boston’s Jordan Hall, New York’s Le Poisson Rouge, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Symphony Space, Alice Tully Hall, and in recitals, competitions, and master classes throughout the United States and abroad. He has served as Director of Opera and Musical Theatre at Ithaca College, Professor and Artistic Director of Music Theatre and Opera at Arizona State University, and was appointed President and General Director of Arizona Opera in 2025.