Patrick Francis Chestnut

Born in California, pianist and conductor Patrick Francis Chestnut studied piano, cello and jazz at Indiana University in Bloomington and attended various master classes. He worked as a conductor with the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra, was assistant conductor at the Western Opera Theater San Francisco and conductor in residence at the Opera Camerata in Pittsburgh. After an engagement in the opera studio of the San Francisco Opera and a stay in Perugia (Italy), he moved to Bremerhaven as a repetiteur with conducting duties in 1993 and was repetiteur and Kapellmeister at the Staatstheater Saarbrücken from 1994 to 1997. This was followed by engagements in Koblenz, Mainz and Detmold and freelance work as a conductor and pianist. In 2008 Patrick Francis Chestnut was engaged as a repetiteur at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, since the 2018/19 season he has been deputy choral director. Here he has conducted "The Magic Flute" (Mozart), "Rigoletto" (Verdi), "L'elisir d'amore" (Donizetti), "Puss in Boots" (Montsalvatge), "The Csárdás Princess" and "The Circus Princess" (Kálmán), as well as "Trouble in Tahiti" (Bernstein), "Der Graf von Luxemburg" (Lehár), "Hänsel und Gretel" (Humperdinck), "Gulliver's Travels" (Resch), "Geisterritter" (Reynolds), "Die Fledermaus" (J. Strauss) as well as the ballet evenings b.24 and b.25 "Il barbiere di Siviglia" (Rossini), "Lucia di Lammermoor" (Donizetti), Offenbach's "Orpheus in the Underworld" and Verdi's "La traviata". In the 2023/24 season Patrick Francis Chestnut will take over the musical direction of "Comedian Harmonists - Best of", "Orpheus in the Underworld" and Ronchetti's "The Flying Classroom" as well as the choral direction of Wagner's "The Flying Dutchman", Bock's "Anatevka", "La traviata", Bellini's "I Capuleti e i Montecchi (Romeo and Juliet)", Rossini's "La Cenerentola", Eggert's "Iwein Löwenritter", "Il barbiere di Siviglia" and Puccini's "Madama Butterfly".