Steven Osgood

Steven Osgood is an American conductor. At the age of 4 he began studying the piano and singing, and along the way picked up the clarinet, horn, trumpet, and tuba. As an adult, he was attracted to theater, and after pursuing his undergraduate studies at Drew University, he joined the Irondale Ensemble, an improvisational theater company in New York. He became the ensemble's first music director and eventually discovered a strong interest in opera. Following his work with Irondale, he became an apprentice coach and pianist with Opera North in New Hampshire, and held positions with New York City’s Amato Opera, the Bronx Opera, and the New Amsterdam Singers. Interest in contemporary music brought Osgood into contact with Tan Dun, whose Marco Polo, The Peony Pavilion, and the Crouching Tiger Concerto were projects he helped prepare. In the 2006-2007 season of the Metropolitan Opera, he was assistant conductor of Tan's opera, The First Emperor. Other operas he has conducted include Alban Berg's Wozzeck, Francis Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites, Kaija Saariaho’s L'amour de loin, Hans Werner Henze's Venus und Adonis, and Bright Sheng's Madame Mao. He led the world premiere of Jonathan Sheffer’s Blood on the Dining Room Floor, and the American premiere of the chamber version of Tobias Picker’s Thérèse Raquin. He has conducted productions at the Juilliard School of Music and has been involved with the Manhattan School of Music, where he conducted and recorded Lee Hoiby's A Month in the Country and Virgil Thompson's The Mother of Us All, both released on Albany.