Employee Bios & Information

Brian Salesky
General Director and Conductor

Brian Salesky has enjoyed a highly versatile, international career as a conductor of symphonic and chamber orchestras, opera and operetta, ballet and modern dance, Broadway musicals and popular music. During his thirty-year career in the performing arts, Mr. Salesky has also engaged in a wide variety of work as a producer/manager of concerts, opera, television, radio and videos, and has distinguished himself as a solo pianist, accompanist, music arranger, fund-raiser, educator, lecturer, author and consultant.

In 1986, following his concerts with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Executive Director Henry Fogel nominated Brian Salesky for the National Endowment for the Arts Conducting Award - the most prestigious prize of its kind in the United States. Fogel praised him as "an excellent conductor and musician with solid musical ideas communicated well in rehearsal and performance...a fabulous musical and cultural mind...strong in a wide range of repertoire who treats musicians very well...a pleasure to work with in all ways." A year earlier Mr. Salesky had made his European debut at Barcelona's Gran Teatro del Liceo (L'Elisir d'amore with Alfredo Kraus and Bernd Weikl). Mr. Salesky was then immediately invited to conduct the Orquesta Sinfónica Radio/TV Española in Madrid and Granada concerts which starred Mr. Kraus and Renata Scotto. Outside of the United States he has since returned to Barcelona (Madama Butterfly with Catherine Malfitano) and has appeared with Opera Australia (Adriana Lecouvreur, Sweeney Todd), the Spoleto Festival (Falstaff), the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra (Canada) and the National Symphony of Peru.

Mr. Salesky, Executive Director and Conductor of Holiday Concert Productions, has appeared throughout the United States including engagements with the symphony orchestras of Denver, San Diego, Syracuse, the Kennedy Center, Chicago's Grant Park, Napa (with pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet), South Bend, Greensboro and Utica, the chamber orchestras of Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Indianapolis and Woodstock, and the opera companies of Chicago (Simon Boccanegra), Cincinnati (La Voix Humaine/Seven Deadly Sins/Medusa[stage premiere] with Ms. Malfitano), Atlanta (Black Widow), Washington (Der Schauspieldirektor, Abu Hassan, Christopher Columbus), Dayton (Tosca), Knoxville (Don Giovanni), Central City (Così fan tutte, Lucia) and Montana (Butterfly, Rigoletto, La Traviata, Lucia, L'Elisir). In his native New York City, Mr. Salesky has served as Music Director for the Congress of Strings, Musique à la Mode Chamber Orchestra (including Ida Kavafian's first Four Seasons), the Jamaica Symphony Orchestra, the Broadway revival of Man of La Mancha (featuring Raul Julia) and as Resident Conductor for George Abbott’s Tony Award production of On Your Toes (with Galina Panova and Kitty Carlisle).

Mr. Salesky first won critical plaudits during his six-year tenure as a resident conductor and administrator with the New York City Opera where he was a three-time recipient of the Julius Rudel Award. With the company in New York City and on tour in Los Angeles, Washington and Mexico, his repertoire included Andrea Chénier, Ariadne auf Naxos, Attila, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, La Bohème, Cavalleria Rusticana, Les Contes d'Hoffman, Don Giovanni, Falstaff, La Fille du Régiment, Die Fledermaus, Die lustige Witwe, Manon, Mefistofele, Naughty Marietta, Le Nozze di Figaro, Pagliacci, Les Pêcheurs de Perles, I Puritani, Rigoletto, The Student Prince, Tosca, La Traviata, Il Turco in Italia and the world premiere productions of Bernstein's operatic Candide and the Silverman/Foreman Madame Adare. During this period he made his U.S. television debut conducting the "Live From Lincoln Center" telecast of La Cenerentola and was the artistic and administrative director of the N.Y.C. Opera National Company conducting Carmen and La Traviata in 45 cities.

Away from the podium, Mr. Salesky's eclectic range of activities have included various education positions with Indiana University, Hunter College and the Israel Vocal Arts Institute, serving as Artistic Adviser to the symphony orchestras of Denver and Utica, Walt Disney Studios (Fantasia 2000), the American Guild of Musical Artists, the Richard Tucker Music Foundation and the N.Y.C. Performing Arts Education Advisory Commission. He has produced videos for the American Express Co. and from 1996 to 2001 served as Co-founder, Executive Producer and fund-raiser for the Raul Julia Ending Hunger Fund’s four-million-dollar campaign. At his RJEHF galas in N.Y.C., L.A. and San Juan Mr. Salesky collaborated with Catherine Malfitano, Kallen Esperian, Justino Diaz, William Hurt, Anjelica Huston, Susan Sarandon, Andy Garcia, Jeff Bridges, Sonia Braga, Valerie Harper, Edward James Olmos, Ruben Blades, and Michael Nouri.

The Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Indiana University took graduate studies at The Juilliard School, has assisted conductors Leonard Bernstein, Daniele Gatti, Gianfranco Masini and Simone Young, and has accompanied hundreds of singers including Joan Sutherland, Catherine Malfitano, Richard Tucker, Sherrill Milnes, and Robert Merrill.