John Massaro

Guest Conductor

John Massaro is the Principal Conductor for the Phoenix Opera where, in addition to leading productions of several operas, he conducted opera Galas with world renowned opera superstars Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Jonas Kaufmann.

He is also an award winning composer recently completing his second opera called The Seven Sisters intended for university opera programs. Samples of his first opera, Isabella, are available on the website IsabellaOpera.com.

Mr. Massaro served as an assistant to Leonard Bernstein during the creation of A Quiet Place and to Zubin Mehta for the Israel Philharmonic’s production of Madama Butterfly in Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem. He worked extensively with the great German soprano, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, with whom he coached both Opera and Art Song repertoire.

Mr. Massaro made his Carnegie Hall debut conducting the Mozart Requiem which led to a distinguished European tour to Budapest, Krakow, Prague, Salzburg and Vienna, where he conducted several additional Mozart masterpieces in a 250th anniversary celebration of the composer’s birth.

Mr. Massaro made his Italian conducting debut in 2023 with a series of performances of Rossini’s La Cenerentola for FIO Italia. This year he returned to Italy to conduct Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites.

He debuted with the Phoenix Symphony in 2002, conducting a 9/11 memorial concert, which included his own arrangement of the National Anthem. He has also served as Musical Director for the Phoenix Theater and the Black Theatre Troupe (BTT), where he received an AriZoni Award for BTT’s production of Blues in the Night.

As the first Music Director for the Arizona Broadway Theatre, Mr. Massaro conducted numerous stage productions including: Anything Goes, Man of La Mancha, Damn Yankees, HMS Pinafore, The World Goes Round, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and South Pacific winning awards for his work there.