A B O U T
Music director, conductor, pianist, vocal coach, and new opera advocate - Alan has prepared, performed, and premiered many of the most notable and progressive works in opera, music theater, and dance since 1986.
His work has garnered Bessie, Drama Desk, Jefferson, and Obie Awards, including an Obie Award for Sustained Excellence in Music Direction and a Joseph Jefferson Award for Outstanding Music Direction of The Sound of a Voice and Hotel of Dreams, two one-act operas by Philip Glass and David Henry Hwang.
Production affiliations, performances, and composer collaborations have included work by John Adams, Edward Barnes, Nicholas Brooke, Mary Ellen Childs, Douglas Cuomo, Michael Daugherty, Michael Dellaira, Tina Davidson, Anthony Davis, Jonathan Dove, John Duffy, Gary Fagin, Kenneth Fuchs, Michael Gordon, Allan Jaffe, Guy Klucevsek, Michael Kosch, Leroy Jenkins, Michael John LaChiusa, David Lang, Libby Larsen, Charles Norman Mason, Lansing McClosky, John Moran, Diedre Murray, Polly Pen, Michael Alec Rose, Dan Moses Schreier, Thomas Sleeper, Michael Torke, and Richard Wargo.
He has conducted performances at venues across the United States including the American Repertory Theater, American Music Theater Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Lincoln Center, New York Shakespeare Festival, Opera Delaware, A Contemporary Theater – Seattle, Court Theater – University of Chicago, Jacobs Pillow, Joyce Theater, Long Wharf Theater, McCarter Theater, Spoleto Festival USA and Italy, Pittsburgh Opera Theater, and many others.
His long association with Philip Glass has included music direction for numerous premieres in opera (In the Penal Colony, The Sound of a Voice) dance/music theater (Provenance Unknown, The Mysteries and What’s So Funny?!) theater (Henry IV Parts I and II, Cymbeline, In the Summer House) as well as music preparation for the premieres of Book of Longing, The Making of the Representative for Planet 8, Hydrogen Jukebox, Orphée, and La Belle et La Bête.
He holds the rank of Professor in the Department of Vocal Performance at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami, Florida where he is Program and Music Director/Conductor of the Frost Opera Theater. Since 2008, Alan has held the position of Music Director at the John Duffy Institute for New Opera at the Virginia Arts Festival. Creative projects in recent years include a 2016 Rockefeller Residency in Bellagio, Italy, two UM Provost Research Awards, and song recitals in New York, Princeton, Alabama, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Iowa, North Carolina, and Florida. He holds a Bachelor of Music in piano performance from the University of Miami and a Master of Music in Vocal Coaching and Accompanying from the University of Illinois, having studied with legendary pianists Ivan Davis and John Wustman.