Celebrating his fifteenth year as Music Director of the Madison Symphony Orchestra with a Signature Season, John DeMain is noted for his dynamic performances on concert and opera stages throughout America and the world.

“A gifted orchestra builder,” according to The New York Times, Mr. DeMain has enhanced the quality of the Madison Symphony Orchestra, overseeing its move into the magnificent new Overture Hall and expanding its subscription season to triple performances of nine concerts. “It was tempting,” said The New York Times of the MSO during its inaugural season in the new hall, “to compare this regional orchestra...with a major international ensemble.”

Mr. DeMain also serves as Artistic Director for both Madison Opera and Opera Pacific in Orange County, California, where he created an unprecedented seven-company co-production of Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking.

His active conducting schedule has taken him to the stages of the National Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Pacific Symphony, Boston Pops, Aspen Chamber Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Orchestra of Seville and Mittledeutscher Rundfunk Orchestra, along with the orchestras of Denver, Detroit, Houston, Jacksonville, Pittsburgh, San Antonio, St. Louis and Seattle. In summer 2007, he donated a critically acclaimed performance to the National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica to benefit their National Institute of Music. Mr. DeMain has also been a regular conductor with the symphony and opera of Mexico City.

He is a regular guest conductor with Washington National Opera, Michigan Opera Theatre, New York City Opera and Los Angeles Opera, to which he returned in 2006-2007 to conduct highly acclaimed performances of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, the opera that has become his signature work. In 2007-2008 he conducted A View from the Bridge with Washington National Opera. And in 2008-2009 he makes his Lyric Opera of Chicago debut and returns to San Francisco Opera to conduct Porgy and Bess.

The list of Mr. DeMain's world premieres expanded last season with Joel Hoffman's The Forty Steps with the MSO. He has also conducted the world premieres of Ned Rorem's Mallet Concerto, Daniel Catan's Suite from Florencia en Amazonas, Leonard Bernstein's A Quiet Place, Carlisle Floyd's Willie Stark and The Passion of Jonathan Wade, John Adams' Nixon in China, Michael Tippet's New Year and Philip Glass' The Making of the Representative of Planet Eight, based on the book by Doris Lessing. He also led the American premieres of Glass' Akhnaten and Maria de Buenos Aires.

During his distinguished 17-year tenure with Houston Grand Opera, Mr. DeMain led a history-making production of Porgy and Bess, winning a Grammy Award, Tony Award and France’s Grand Prix du Disque for the RCA recording. In all, he has conducted more than 350 performances of Porgy and Bess throughout the world, including performances at La Scala di Milano, Paris Opera (Bastille) and for Japan Arts in Tokyo. His critically acclaimed New York City Opera production of the opera was televised on the Live from Lincoln Center series and garnered an Emmy Nomination for “Outstanding Classical Music & Dance Program.”

Live from Lincoln Center also presented his productions of An American Christmas with James Earl Jones, Floyd’s Willie Stark, Joplin’s Treemonisha and Adams’ Nixon in China. Mr. DeMain’s contributions to the series were celebrated in the 2006 30th Anniversary Broadcast, which featured excerpts of his New York City Opera Porgy and Bess performance and of “No Puede ser” with the legendary tenor Plácido Domingo, with whom he has worked extensively in concerts throughout the world, most notably in the celebrated 1992 Concert for the Planet Earth from Rio de Janeiro.

Mr. DeMain began his career as a pianist and conductor in his native Youngstown, Ohio. After winning the Youngstown symphony's piano concerto competition at age 18, he went on to earn his Bachelor's and Master's degrees at the Juilliard School. He made a highly acclaimed debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and was the second recipient of the Julius Rudel Award at New York City Opera. He was also one of the first six conductors to receive the Exxon/National Endowment for the Arts American Conductor Fellowship for his work with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.

Mr. DeMain holds Honorary Doctorate degrees from the University of Nebraska and Edgewood College. He was recently named a Fellow by the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. He resides in Madison with his wife Barbara and their daughter Jennifer.