Please welcome a our guest for this week's episode: David Walker! In the spring of 2019, David Walker was selected to be the company’s general & artistic director, and since then has expertly guided the company through the COVID-19 global pandemic crisis. During the pandemic, he led an entire company pivot to be the first large-scale, live, outdoor opera festival since the crisis began, which featured a full orchestra and chorus, and a line-up of today’s top opera stars. Additionally, throughout the entire crisis, he has maintained surplus budgets and strong cash reserves – even when the company had to cancel one of its performances at the top of the crisis, engaged the company’s patron and supporter bases, retained a full-time staff and team, cultivated new board members, and introduced one of the company’s newest artistic initiatives designed to expand the company’s offerings of non-standard operatic repertoire – its ‘Discovery Series’.
