Brandon Eldredge is a conductor, pianist, and operatic coach, having worked across the United States, Germany, and Sweden. Most recently, he conducted performances of Central City Opera’s 2023 production of Roméo et Juliette. Since joining Virginia Opera as Associate Conductor and Chorus Master in 2019, he has cover conducted and prepared choruses for Tosca, Il Postino, La Cenerentola, Aida, and Le nozze di Figaro, as well as preparing choruses and conducting performances of La Bohème, The Pirates of Penzance, and La Traviata. He is making his debut as principal conductor for the current season’s production of Il barbiere di Siviglia. He is an integral part of the company’s Herndon Foundation Emerging Artists Program, working closely with young opera singers on the forefront of their careers. Having had his start as a conductor focused on symphonic repertoire, he worked as Assistant Conductor for the Urbana-Champaign Symphony Orchestra in Illinois and the orchestral ensembles at The College of New Jersey. Since 2022, he has appeared as Guest and Cover Conductor for a multitude of concerts with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra as part of their outreach and classical programming, including their latest collaboration with cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
As Associate Conductor and Chorus Master for Central City Opera, he musically directed, as well as conducted from the piano, their performances of Dido and Aeneas and served as Cover Conductor for their productions of Carousel and Rigoletto (2021). In the summer of 2022, he returned to conduct performances of Die Fledermaus and Jake Heggie’s Two Remain and covered and chorus mastered their 2023 productions of Kiss Me, Kate and Rossini’s Otello. He will make his debut as principal conductor for the company’s premiere production of The Pirates of Penzance in their 2024 Summer Festival. After serving as Assistant Conductor for Opera Saratoga’s 2018 productions of The Merry Widow and The Consul, he was re-engaged to cover conduct Hänsel und Gretel and conduct Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mozart and Salieri for their 2019 season. As a pianist and vocal coach, he has helped prepare productions for Virginia Opera’s Three Decembers, Das Rheingold and Trouble in Tahiti (2021-2022), Sacramento Opera’s Rigoletto (2019), Opera Southwest’s Tosca (2018), and Oper Bonn’s (Germany) Die Zauberflöte and Madama Butterfly (2016). He continues to perform as a pianist when possible, having recently enjoyed appearing as a guest artist for Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle with the Virginia Chorale, the premiere vocal ensemble in the Commonwealth. Before returning to the US in 2018, Brandon worked as a pianist and vocal coach for four years at Härnösands folkhögskola, one of Sweden’s premiere opera vocal training programs for young singers, as well as at the Universität Siegen in Germany.