David Neely Director of Orchestral Activities
David Neely is the Director of Orchestral Activities and Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Kansas.
He brings extensive international professional experience to the job, having worked as a conductor in Germany for over 10 years. Equally at home in the symphonic and operatic areas, he has led concerts with the Bochum Symphony, the Dortmund Philharmonic, the Vorarlberg Symphony, The University of Texas Symphony and the opera houses of Bonn, Dortmund, Saarbrücken, Coburg, St.Gallen, Bielefeld, Kaisersautern, Halle, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He recently led Sarasota Opera's production of Moniuszko's rarely performed Polish opera Halka, having conducted that company's Die Fledermaus in 2006. In 2008, he will return to Sarasota to conduct a new production of Puccini's La Rondine.
In addition to possessing an extensive symphonic repertore, he has conducted over 50 stage works, including Otello, La Forza del Destino, Carmen, Eugene Onegin, Hänsel und Gretel, Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, La Cenerentola, Les Contes d'Hoffmann, Werther, and La Juive. In 2000, Maestro Neely led the German premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage's ENO-commissioned opera The Silver Tassie in Dortmund, and in 2006 he led the U.S. premiere of Robert Orledge's completion of Debussy's La Chute de la Maison Usher at the University of Texas. He also has extensive experience conducting ballet and musical theater. Active as a guest conductor with Sarasota Opera since 2006, he has led productions La Rondine, L'amico Fritz, Die Fledermaus, and Halka.
Since 2003, he has been Associate Conductor with Des Moines Metro Opera, where he also served as head of music staff and Co-Director of their renowned James Collier Apprentice Artist Program from 2005-2009. For their 2010 season, he will conduct productions of Verdi's MacBeth and Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro. In 2007 he was honored with one of two nationally awarded Bruno Walter Memorial Foundation Assistant Conductor Grants for his work with at Des Moines. He is a respected vocal coach and collaborative pianist.
In February 2010, he conducted a series of five concerts with the KU Symphony Orchestra around the state of Kansas, which included a performance at the Kansas Music Educators Association annual In-Service Workshop and a performance in Great Bend attended by KU Chancellor Bernadette Grey-Little.
Previous to joining KU, he was Music Director of the Butler Opera Center at the University of Texas at Austin, where he also served as Acting Director of Orchestral Activities for two years.
He holds degrees in piano performance and orchestral conducting from Indiana University and pursued post-graduate study in orchestral conducting at the University of Cincinnati's College-Consevatory of Music under Gerhard Samuel.
