This January, in celebration of National Mentor Month, we highlight the transformative mentorship shaping the future of music and opera at the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester.
Timothy Long is a pianist, conductor, and composer who is the Artistic and Music Director of Opera at the Eastman School of Music. He is a citizen of the Muscogee Creek Nation of Oklahoma from the Thlopthlocco Tribal Town and is one-half Choctaw on his mother’s side.
Long is the founding conductor of The Coast Orchestra, an all-Native American ensemble of classically trained musicians. The group performs music including the original score for a newly restored print of Edward S. Curtis’ 1914 film In the Land of the Head Hunters.
Long is redefining opera for modern audiences by breaking traditional stereotypes and making performances shorter, more diverse, and highly relatable. Forget the formal gowns and tuxedos– Tim encourages audiences to embrace their authenticity. “I go to the opera in jeans; I come as I am,” he says, inviting others to do the same.
Conducting Experience
Long’s work on Thomas Adès’s operatic tour-de-force Powder Her Face at the Aspen Music Festival led to his appointment as assistant conductor of the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and he was subsequently named an associate conductor at the New York City Opera for two seasons. This season, he will join the conducting staff of the Metropolitan Opera for X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, by Anthony Davis and Thulani Davis.
At City Opera Vancouver, Long conducted the 2017 world premiere of Missing, a groundbreaking new work by Marie Clements and Brian Current about the 5,000 (and rising) missing Indigenous women in Canada. In 2019, he conducted a Canadian tour of Missing with Pacific Opera Victoria, the Regina Symphony Orchestra, and the Prince George Symphony Orchestra. This extraordinary composition is the first opera to be sung in both Gitxsan and English.
In the 2022-2023 seasons, Long conducted both Lear on the Second Floor by Allan Havis and Pulitzer Prize recipient Anthony Davis, Handel’s Alcina for Eastman Opera Theatre, the world premiere of How Bright the Sunlight by Anthony David, and the 23rd U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo (Muscogee) with the Eastman Philharmonia, the American premiere of Missing for his debut at Anchorage Opera and he was guest harpsichordist and conductor with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia for his debut program entitled Bach’s Legacy.
This summer Long led Handel’s Semele for World Trap Opera before heading to Tannery Pond Concerts for a recital with acclaimed tenor Karim Sulayman. His summer performances concluded with another debut when he was chosen by the celebrated French conductor Louis Langrèe to guest conduct the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra at Lincoln Center for the In Harmony: Side by Side series.
Recordings & Performances
As a pianist and harpsichordist, Long has performed at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Merkin Hall, the Kennedy Center, National Sawdust, the Kimmel Center, Jordan Hall, Wigmore Hall in London, the Alte Oper in Frankfurt, Herkules Hall in Munich, Dvořák Hall in Prague, La Halle aux Grains in Toulouse, the Mostly Modern Festival, the Moab Music Festival, the Oregon Bach Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, the Caramoor Festival, and the Dame Myra Hess Series in Chicago, among many others.
Long’s recordings include Alburnum, with internationally renowned baritone Brian Mulligan (Bright Shiny Things, 2022), Beauty Intolerable: Songs of Sheila Silver (Albany Records, 2021), the American Classics recording of Dominick Argento song cycles with Brian Mulligan (Naxos, 2017), the Opera America Songbook (Opera America, 2012), and The Music Teacher (Bridge Records, 2008), starring Wallace Shawn, Parker Posey, and Elizabeth Berkley.
Long is passionate about his work with The Plimpton Foundation, which promotes the work of Native American and underrepresented performing artists through scholarships, grants, and commissions. He lives in Rochester, NY, and Montclair, NJ, with his husband, baritone Christopher Dylan Herbert, and their sweet basset hound mix, Pumpkin.
Tickets to Eastman Opera Theatre performances can be purchased here. For more information, visit esm.rochester.edu/theatre/.
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