Laurann Gilley

Laurann Gilley has been a coach and pianist with the Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago for the past 20 years, performing frequently with members of the ensemble, coaching upcoming repertoire, playing for the final stage auditions, recording for WFMT Radio, and playing with the Lyric Opera Orchestra. She served in the same capacity with Glimmerglass Opera for 15 seasons, having prepared several operas, including three world premieres. Other companies she has worked with include San Francisco Opera, Seattle Opera, San Diego Opera, Vancouver Opera, and the American Symphony Orchestra, with whom she has also recorded. Conductors with whom she has worked include Enrique Mazzola, Sir Andrew Davis, and Richard Bonynge.

An avid chamber musician, Gilley has collaborated on recitals at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, the Chicago Cultural Center, on the San Francisco Opera Schwabacher Series, and in other venues throughout the US and Canada, joining forces with artists such as Will Liverman, J’nai Bridges, Amanda Majeski, Nicole Cabell, Alyson Cambridge, and William Burden. As a conductor, Gilley has paced Jason and the Argonauts at Lyric Opera of Chicago, Così fan tutte at Florentine Opera, Suor Angelica and The Impresario, and a virtual La Bohème with Midwest Opera Theater, and Bertha (Rorem), Broken Pieces (Hagen), and The Promise of Living with Roosevelt University’s Opera Theater. In 2018, Gilley was selected for the Hart Institute for Women Conductors. Gilley holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music, the Manhattan School of Music, and Southern Methodist University.