Press Release: Pensacola Opera’s Board of Trustees has announced the appointment of Maestro Jerome Shannon as the company’s new Executive Director. Shannon has been acting as Interim Executive Director since January, and has been involved with the Opera as Music Director and Principal Conductor since 2002.
Pensacola Opera Board Chair, Lois Benson, comments, “…during his tenure as interim we discovered that not only is Jerry a talented maestro and a gifted raconteur, but he is also an inspirational leader of people. He has incredible business savvy, and he is witty and level-headed. An artsy guy with business acumen—think right brain left brain. When our search committee screened the applicants and conducted the interviews, we collectively arrived at the conclusion: we already had our guy.â€
Praised for his “skill and verve†(New York Times), Shannon celebrates nearly 30 years as a professional operatic pianist, vocal coach, conductor and administrator. During this time, Maestro Shannon has held leadership positions with Sarah Caldwell’s Opera Company of Boston (Artistic Administrator, Assistant Conductor, Conductor), Virginia Opera (Artistic Administrator, Associate Artistic Director, Conductor), Pensacola Opera (Music Director and Principal Conductor), Shreveport Opera (Music Director and Principal Conductor), Mobile Opera (General and Artistic Director, Principal Conductor) and the Janiec Opera Company of the Brevard Music Center (Resident Conductor and Vocal Coach).
An active vocal coach and pianist, Jerome Shannon has served as a judge for the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and numerous regional opera voice competitions, an On-Site Evaluator and Reporter for the National Endowment for the Art and is the recipient of OPERA America’s BRAVO Service award for dynamic leadership in the industry. Shannon is a graduate of the College of Creative Arts of West Virginia University where he was a scholarship student of Metropolitan Opera soprano Frances Yeend and her husband, coach/pianist James Benne