Richard Carsey

Conductor

Conductor Richard Carsey enjoys a varied career as a conductor, pianist, orchestrator and actor, and has been called by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal “one of the most influential theatre artists in Milwaukee over the past 10 years.” Mr Carsey is having a very busy season. He is currently music director of the National Tour of A Little House on the Prarie, a new musical directed by Francesca Zambello. He is also music director of Minister’s Wife, another new musical by Josh Schmidt and Jan Tranene which was at the Writer’s Theater in Chicago. This will be in workshop this Summer at Lincoln Center in New York City. Next season Richard will be Music Director of Minister’s Wife at Lincoln Center in his Broadway Debut. He also led performances of Old Wicked Songs at the Tandem Theatre in Milwaukee. In addition, Mr. Carsey continues as Pops conductor with the Racine Symphony Orchestra in Wisconsin.

In March he led performances of his own orchestration of The Wiz at First Stage Milwaukee, which was recorded for children. In May he conducts a Pops concert with the Sheboygan Symphony Orchestra in Wisconsin. Next season he will lead performances of H.M.S. Pinafore and the Adding Machine with Skylight Opera in Milwaukee.

Mr. Carsey is currently the Principal Conductor of the Skylight Opera Theatre, where he also served as Artistic Director from 1997 to 2003. During his 15-year association with the Skylight, Mr. Carsey has conducted over 50 productions. Highlights of his operatic work at the Skylight include Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, Cosi fan tutte, Don Giovanni, Eugene Onegin, Carmen, Gianni Schicchi and Argento’s Waterbird Talk. Mr. Carsey’s interest in contemporary opera and new musical theater has made the Skylight one of the leaders in this area. These include the operas Little Women by Mark Adamo, Rosina by Hiram Titus, 3by Richard Wargo, and the world premiere production of Wargo’s Ballymore (based on the play Lovers, by Brian Friel) which was subsequently broadcast on regional PBS.

Mr. Carsey has also championed the ongoing legacy of musical theatre at the Skylight, and has conducted works from the standard repertory as well as pieces by emerging composers. These include My Fair Lady, Guys and Dolls, Sweeney Todd, Floyd Collins, The Triumph of Love, She Loves Me, Chicago, Oklahoma, Man of La Mancha, and Anything Goes. He provided new orchestrations for Skylight’s production of The Christmas Schooner, by Julie Shannon and John Reeger, and served as onstage pianist for the revues Ain’t Misbehvin’ and Grand Night for Singing. From 1994-1998, he was the director of the Skylight Music Series, which featured concerts ranging from an original chamber orchestration of Copland’s Appalacian Spring, an evening of Brahms lieder and chamber music, and a semi-staged version of Benjamin Britten’s opera The Rape of Lucricia, which he directed and conducted.

He also provided stage direction for Skylight’s productions of The King and I and Fiddler on the Roof. He has conducted several works of Gilbert and Sullivan for Skylight, including The Pirates of Penzance, H.M.S. Pinafore, Iolanthe, and The Mikado which was broadcast on Milwaukee Public Television.

In 1989, Mr. Carsey was the co-author, pianist and performer in Skylight’s tour, A Broadway Cabaret, under the auspices of the United States Information Agency. The program traveled internationally for two summers, the first year in South and Central America , and the following year in Eastern Europe (including Turkey and Greece). The program reached thousands of people, providing a glimpse into American theater music to people of many cultures.

Mr. Carsey is originally from Omaha, Nebraska, and has studied there with a number of teachers including Paul Parker, John Bennett, and Jackson Berkey, one of the founding members of the group Mannheim Steamroller. His college education began at the Eastman School of Music, and he finished his Bachelors of Music in Piano at the University of Louisville, where he studied with the esteemed pianist Lee Luvisi, a member of the Lincoln Center Chamber Players. He received a Masters Degree in Piano at Indiana University, where he served as a member of the coaching faculty for its opera program. During his time at IU, he traveled with a group of performers to Pakistan and the Persian Gulf. He spent two summers at the esteemed Music Academy of the West.

Since 1991, he has made Milwaukee his home, and has been active in the community in many capacities. As an actor, he has appeared as Harold in The Boys in the Band, Malvolio in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, and Artie in The House of Blue Leaves for Bialystock and Bloom; Manny in Master Class, and multiple roles in Dirty Blonde for Chamber Theater; and in several productions at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater including The School for Wives, Tom Foolery and Little by Little.

He performed the two-actor play 2 Pianos, 4 Hands at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater, and subsequently performed it to great acclaim at the Actor’s Theater of Louisville, directed by one of the play’s authors, Richard Greenberg. His association with the play is ongoing, with recent record-setting productions at the Laguna Beach Playhouse, the Globe Theater in Regina, Saskatchewan, and at the Gilmore International Piano Festival.

Mr. Carsey works frequently as a music director with regional theaters and opera companies, including Lyric Opera Cleveland (La Belle Helene, Side by Side, The Barber of Seville, Into the Woods); Florida State Opera (Orpheus and the Underworld), and the Liceu Opera in Barcelona, Spain (A Little Sondheim Music). He recently provided musical direction and orchestrations for the First Stage production of the musical Honk! as well as accompaniment for Danceworks concert “Vocal Muscle”. He provided musical direction for two productions at Marriott Lincolnshire Theater in Chicago, Brigadoon and Forum.

Other productions include Tartuffe (opera) and Patience (G and S) at the Skylight; the new musical Once Upon a Time in New Jersey at the Marriott Lincolnshire; and a return engagement at the Hartford Stage Company and the Dallas Theater Center in 2 Pianos, 4 Hands.
4/27/10