The Conductor for Mesopotamian Night 2009 Concert

AAS-A Central Valley Chapter has asked John Kendall Bailey, a conductor from the San Francisco Bay Area to conduct our 50-piece orchestra for the Mesopotamian Night concert 2009. Mr. Bailey will closely work with Ms. Raeeka Shehabi for the production of the Qateeni opera as well as the Death of Enkidu scene form the Gilgamesh opera.



John Kendall Bailey Biography



John Kendall Bailey is Music Director, Principal Conductor and Chorus Master of Trinity Lyric Opera, Music Director and Conductor of Voices of Musica Sacra, Associate Conductor of the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra, and Artistic Director of the San Francisco Song Festival.

In 1994, Mr. Bailey founded the Berkeley Lyric Opera and served as its Music Director and Conductor until 2001. Since then he has been a guest conductor with the Oakland East Bay Symphony, American Philharmonic-Sonoma County, Oakland Youth Orchestra, and Oakland Ballet, and music director and conductor for productions with North Bay Opera, Pocket Opera, Mission City Opera, the Crowden School, Dominican University, Thick Description, Goat Hall Productions, Opera Frontier, Solo Opera, Shoebox Opera, and Golden State Theater Productions. He has recently conducted the premieres of two of David Conte’s operas, America Tropical and Famous. Mr. Bailey has taught conducting at the University of California at Davis and Notre Dame de Namur University.

As a choral director, Mr. Bailey was Chorus Master of the Festival Opera of Walnut Creek from 2002-2006, Chorus Master for Opera San Jose in 2009, and has been guest conductor for the University of California-Berkeley Chamber Chorus, the University of California-Davis Chorus, Chamber Singers, and Alumni Chorus, and the Berkeley Broadway Singers.

Mr. Bailey is also a composer, and his works have been performed and commissioned in the Bay Area and abroad.

Mr. Bailey also maintains a busy performance schedule as a baritone, oboist, and pianist, and has performed with the San Francisco, Santa Rosa, Oakland East Bay, Berkeley, Redding, Napa, Sacramento, and Prometheus symphonies, American Bach Soloists, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, the Midsummer Mozart and West Marin music festivals, San Francisco Bach Choir, Coro Hispano de San Francisco, Pacific Mozart Ensemble, Sacred and Profane, California Vocal Academy, San Francisco Concerto Orchestra, Masterworks Chorale of San Mateo, Baroque Arts Ensemble, San Francisco Korean Master Chorale, the Master Sinfonia, the Mark Morris and Merce Cunningham dance companies, Goat Hall Productions, Opera Piccola, the Berkeley, Golden Gate, and Oakland Lyric Opera companies, and many other groups. He has recorded for the Harmonia Mundi, Koch International, Pro Musica, Wildboar, Centaur, and Angelus Music labels.

Mr. Bailey has been a pre-performance lecturer for the Oakland East Bay Symphony, San Francisco Opera, American Bach Soloists and Festival Opera of Walnut Creek, a critic for the San Francisco Classical Voice, and a writer of real-time commentary for the Concert Companion.