Michael Butterman

Michael Butterman

Now in his eighth season with the RPO, Michael Butterman is also Music Director for both the Shreveport Symphony and the Boulder Philharmonic.
 
In demand as a guest conductor, Mr. Butterman’s recent engagements include appearances with the symphonies of Detroit, Houston, Oregon, Kansas City, Hartford, San Antonio, Syracuse, New Mexico, Spokane, Santa Fe and Mobile as well as the Louisiana Philharmonic and Asheville Lyric Opera. Summer appearances include the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival in Colorado and the Wintergreen Music Festival in Virginia. In 2007-08, Mr. Butterman returns to the podiums of the Jacksonville Symphony and the Quad City Symphony and makes his debut with the Pensacola Opera.
 
Mr. Butterman gained international attention as a diploma laureate in the Prokofiev International Conducting Competition and as a finalist in the prestigious Besançon International Conducting Competition. As the 1999 recipient of the Seiji Ozawa Fellowship, he studied at Tanglewood with Robert Spano, Jorma Panula and Maestro Ozawa, and shared the podium with Ozawa to lead the season’s opening concert. In 1997, Mr. Butterman was sponsored by UNESCO to lead the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Moldova in a concert of music by great American masters.
  
From 2000 to 2007, Mr. Butterman held the post of Associate Conductor for the Jacksonville Symphony in Florida. For six seasons, he also served as Music Director of Opera Southwest in Albuquerque, N.M. Prior to joining the Jacksonville Symphony, Mr. Butterman was Director of Orchestral Studies at the LSU School of Music for five years, and was Principal Conductor of the LSU Opera Theater. Previously, he held the post of Associate Conductor of the Columbus Pro Musica Orchestra, and served as Music Director of the Chamber Opera, Studio Opera and Opera Workshop at the Indiana University School of Music. For two seasons, he was also the Associate Music Director of the Ohio Light Opera, conducting over 35 performances each summer.
 
At Indiana University, Mr. Butterman conducted a highly acclaimed production of Leonard Bernstein’s little-known 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in a series of performances at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., receiving unanimous praise from such publications as the New York Times, Washington Post, Variety and USA Today. He was subsequently invited to New York at the request of the Bernstein estate to prepare a performance of a revised version of the piece.
 
Mr. Butterman’s work has been featured in five nationwide broadcasts on NPR’s Performance Today, and can be heard on two CDs recorded for the Newport Classics label.