Conductor Braden Toan’s eclectic career crosses from opera to American musical theater, and now, new American opera. Recent and upcoming productions include Philip Glass’ Hydrogen Jukebox for Tri-Cities Opera – a moving chamber work set to the poetry of Allen Ginsburg; Gregory Spears’ Fellow Travelers, as part of the Prototype Festival in New York – an achingly beautiful and vocally surprising story of doomed love in Washington DC during the McCarthy era; and Jake Heggie’s Three Decembers – a three-singer story of family reconciliation based on Terrence McNally’s play Some Christmas Letters, along with Peter Brook’s La Tragedie de Carmen, in French – the imaginative 1983 reworking of Bizet’s classic – both for Tri-Cities Opera.
His versatility and artistic integrity has earned him the appreciation of singers, musicians, directors and critics. Trained as a symphony and opera conductor, opportunity took him on a detour to Broadway, where he conducted the legendary hit Miss Saigon and the revival of Man of La Mancha starring Brian Stokes Mitchell. During this same time he also remained in the opera world conducting Rameau’s Les Indes Gallantes, and the New York City Opera National Company’s production of Donizetti’s La Fille du Régiment. This led to being engaged at New York City Opera and Chautauqua Opera for every musical produced by those two companies for ten years, in Sweeney Todd, Fiddler on the Roof, Candide, The Music Man, Cinderella, Once Upon a Mattress and The Most Happy Fella. Maestro Toan has led David Pittsinger, Carmen Cusack, Mark Delavan, Timothy Nolen, Elaine Paige, Jonathan Price, Lea Salonga, Brian Stokes Mitchell, John Cullum and Paul Sorvino. Since 2009 he has again straddled the opera and musical theater worlds, leading Paula Kimper’s opera Patience & Sarah in New York, Camelot for Ash Lawn Opera in Charlottesville, Virginia, and then embarking on the National Tour of South Pacific as associate conductor (music director in Los Angeles) of the Tony Award winning revival from Lincoln Center. Since 2012 Maestro Toan has led Amarillo Opera in six productions, including Offenbach’s La Perichole, his third Candide, Amahl and the Night Visitors, The Threepenny Opera and Les Misérables. In 2016 he led his second Sweeney Todd for Tri-Cities Opera of Binghamton, New York, and in 2017, Fiddler on the Roof for Shreveport Opera – their first sold out performance in years! As an orchestrator, in 2015 the maestro, with permission from the estate of Richard Strauss created a reduced orchestration of Strauss’ last opera Capriccio which received performances by Opera Theater of Pittsburgh.