Douglas Fisher

Douglas Fisher is director of opera programs and a professor of opera at Florida State University in Tallahassee. Over the course of his multifaceted career he has served as a conductor, coach, pianist, educator, and administrator. As a conductor, he has led more than 35 operas at Florida State, in addition to productions for Houston Grand Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Central City Opera, and Shreveport Opera. He has also served as a coach, chorus master, and assistant conductor for the Santa Fe, Wolf Trap, Chautauqua, and Columbus opera companies, among others, and has conducted concerts with the Vienna Mozart Orchestra (with soloists Frederica von Stade and Jerry Hadley) and the Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional in Costa Rica.

Also active as a solo pianist, chamber musician, and recital accompanist, Mr. Fisher has collaborated with some of the world's most prominent singers, including Marilyn Horne, Kiri Te Kanawa, Frederica von Stade, Stanford Olsen, Tatiana Troyanos, Anna Moffo, and Judith Blegen.

Mr. Fisher taught at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College and the University of Southern California before accepting his current position at Florida State University, where he directs a master's degree program in opera coaching/conducting, teaches classes in opera literature and coaching techniques, manages the opera program, and conducts most opera productions. In 1997, and again from 2000 to 2002, he was a faculty member at the Music Academy of the West.

Mr. Fisher has written articles for the Lyric Opera of Chicago Study Guide, served as an adjudicator for the Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions, been a consultant for the National Endowment for the Arts, and served as a member of the Music Grant Review Panel for the Florida State Department of Cultural Resources.