TIMOTHY LONG
CONDUCTOR
BIOGRAPHY
Timothy Long is a distinguished conductor, pianist, and composer of Muscogee and Choctaw descent who is Artistic and Music Director of Opera at Eastman School of Music and an assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera. He is an enrolled citizen of the Muscogee Nation and the Thlopthlocco Tribal Town and his mother is Choctaw.
This season, Tim joins the Toronto Summer Music Festival to conduct concert performances of Missing, returns to the Metropolitan Opera to conduct the workshop production of The Mothers of Kherson, and serves as the program curator for a performance of the North American Indigenous Songbook with Resonance Ensemble. In addition, he will return to Eastman Opera Theatre to conduct Christopher Cerrone and Stephanie Fleischman’s In a Grove and the world premiere of Steve Bramson and Gayle Hudson’s new opera Click. Last season included Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos: Prologue, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites for Eastman Opera Theatre. Tim also joined the Metropolitan Opera as an assistant conductor for X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X and the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program’s Orchestra Workshop, and he served as the cover conductor for the Metropolitan Opera’s productions of La bohème and Antony and Cleopatra. Additional recent highlights include the World Premiere of How Bright the Sunlight by Anthony Davis and Joy Harjo (Muscogee Nation citizen, 23rd US Poet Laureate) with the Eastman Philharmonia, the American Premiere of Missing for his début at Anchorage Opera, Handel’s Semele for Wolf Trap Opera, and the In Harmony: Side by Side series with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra at Lincoln Center.
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At the age of 16, Tim made his piano concerto debut with the Oklahoma Symphony Orchestra, and has since performed as a soloist with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, the Lawton (OK) Philharmonic, the Beethoven Society Orchestra of Washington DC, the Sociedad Filarmonica de Conciertos of Mexico City, the Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute Orchestra, the Eastman School Symphony Orchestra, and the Eastman Philharmonia.
His 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.
After early years playing as a violinist in the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, Tim’s passion for symphonic conducting has resulted in engagements with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, the Prince George Symphony, the Regina Symphony, the Eastman Philharmonia, the Prague Summer Nights Orchestra, the Oregon Bach Festival Orchestra, and the Trondheim Sinfonietta. His operatic conducting engagements have included such companies as Boston Lyric Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, Opera Colorado, Utah Opera, Tulsa Opera, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Anchorage Opera, Pacific Opera Victoria, City Opera Vancouver, The Juilliard School, Yale Opera, the New York City Opera, and off-Broadway with The New Group.
At City Opera Vancouver, Tim conducted the 2017 World Premiere of Missing, a groundbreaking new work by Marie Clements and Brian Current about the 5,000 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 the Gitxsan and English languages.
As a pianist and harpsichordist, Tim has performed throughout the world 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 Oregon Bach Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, the Caramoor Festival, and the Dame Myra Hess Series in Chicago, among many others.
Tim’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 (2017 Naxos), the Opera America Songbook (Opera America, 2012), and The Music Teacher (Bridge Records, 2008), starring Wallace Shawn, Parker Posey, and Elizabeth Berkley. He has appeared on NPR, NBC’s Today Show, and CBS Sunday Morning.
Tim is passionate about his role as president of The Plimpton Foundation (theplimptonfoundation.org), which promotes the work of Native American and First Nations performing artists through scholarships, grants, and commissions. He is proud to be joining the Board of Directors of Opera America, and is a 2024 inductee into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame.
Current as of July 8, 2025
CRITICAL ACCLAIM
"... deft musical direction..." – Rochester City Newspaper
The Tibetan Book of the Dead – “Eastman's take on "The Tibetan Book of the Dead" leaves the audience with plenty to ponder: a heartfelt reflection on death as a vital part of life, sung with conviction and manifested through intelligent set design by Daniel Hobbs and deft musical direction by conductor Timothy Long."
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“... verve and confidence…” – Tulsa World
Tulsa Opera Gala – “Oklahoma native Timothy Long, in his company debut, led the Tulsa Opera Orchestra through the wide-ranging program with verve and confidence."
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"... a colorful performance…” – Salt Lake Tribune
Die Zauberflöte – “Tim Long conducted the Utah Symphony in a colorful performance of Mozart’s rich score.”
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"... lively, spot-on tempos..." – The Denver Post
La Cenerentola – “Pacing is everything in this meticulously interwoven production, and conductor Timothy Long could hardly handle it more adroitly, with lively, spot-on tempos that kept the action - and the comedy - whizzing along.”
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"... full command of the score..." – Boulder Daily Camera
Dead Man Walking – “New to CU Opera is Timothy Long, guest music director for this production. He has a full command of the score, stressing that despite its melodic richness there is nothing saccharine about it, for throughout the work Heggie keeps a firmly defined distance from sentimentality.”
REPRESENTATIVES
General