Joseph Walsh

Conductor

Joseph Walsh (Associate Artistic Director and Associate Conductor ) takes the podium at Virginia Opera this season for all performances of The Daughter of the Regiment and Don Giovanni.  Mr. Walsh has a busy summer which included making his Korean conducting debut in Seoul, Korea leading performances of a double bill of Puccini’s Suor Angelica and Mozart’s The Impresario as part of the GMU International Summer Music Institute.  This debut was preceded by his return to the Amalfi Coast Music Festival in Italy where he conducted the Collegium Philarmonicum of Naples in a production of The Marriage of Figaro with performances in Vietri sul mare, the historic church of San Lorenzo in Naples, and at "La Reggia", the royal palace at Caserta.  This past April, Mr. Walsh prepared the Majescoral and VO principal artists Mary Elizabeth Williams and Daniel Snyder for appearances at the 5th Annual Maputo Music festival in Mozambique, Africa.  He will return to Maputo this coming spring with artists from this season’s cast of Virginia Opera’s Porgy and Bess.  In past seasons, Mr. Walsh has served as principal conductor for Virginia Opera productions of Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah, The Elixir of Love and The Pirates of Penzance.  He has also been a regular conductor at the Amalfi Coast Music Festival, leading past productions of Puccini’s greatest comic opera Gianni Schicchi and Mozart’s The Magic Flute, which was presented during the summer of 2006 as part of the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth. 

Mr. Walsh has been involved in musical preparation for more than fifty Virginia Opera productions since joining the company in 1995.  Mr. Walsh has been instrumental in the development of Virginia Opera’s Spectrum Resident Artist Program, an intensive training program for young artists and co-founded the company’s STAR program (Student Training and Artistic Residency), which offers an internship in opera to gifted vocal students from The Governor’s School for the Arts in Norfolk, Virginia.  Mr. Walsh is the creator of this season’s two Virginia Opera touring productions Giovanni and the Beanstalk and The Wonderful Wizard of Opera, which will be performed by Spectrum Resident Artists in schools and community centers throughout the state of Virginia.  He has been involved in the commissioning of several productions for the company’s Education and Community Outreach Program, including Seymour Barab’s The Pied Piper of Hamelin and Cinderella, as well as John David Ernest’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.   

Mr. Walsh has judged the Middle Eastern District of the Metropolitan Opera’s National Council Auditions in Washington D.C. and has served on the coaching faculties of the Esther Boyer College of Music at Temple University in Philadelphia and the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria.   He prepared Virginia Opera’s chorus for the inaugural concert of the new Ferguson Center for the Arts in Newport News in a program with Michael Crawford and the New York City Pops, as well as festive evening joining the forces of Richmond’s three major arts organizations, the Richmond Ballet, The Richmond Symphony and Virginia Opera in performances of Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He served as Musical Director for An Evening of Moonlight and Music at The Huntington Art Collections, Museum and Botanical Gardens in Pasadena, California, featuring artists and selections from Virginia Opera’s 2004 production of The Merry Widow.  

Mr Walsh has recently presented masterclasses at The Bethesda Music Festival, Bel Cantanti Opera Summer Festival, Old Dominion University, George Mason University, Virginia Commonwealth University and Susan Ormont’s New York Auditions Project.  

Vocal Program
Vocal Program, Faculty