Steve Osgood has combined his theater arts interests in a flourishing career as a conductor of opera.
When Steve Osgood was a theatre arts major, opera didn't interest him much. Instead, he focused on acting – and making music, which played an important part in his life growing up.
"I was always singing and playing the piano," he recalls, "and I was still taking music classes in college." Osgood wanted to be an actor as well as a musician. During his last semester at Drew, an internship with the Irondale Ensemble, an experimental theater in New York, enabled him to do just that. He began his career there after graduation, staying four-and-a-half years as music director for the group's off-Broadway productions and enjoying the arts ambience of Manhattan.
Along the way, he came to a realization that changed his life. He discovered that opera was a combination of all aspects of theater – stage performance, dance, costume design and, of course, music – that he loved. "Until then, I hadn't thought of making a career in opera," he says. "But it called to me, and it became clear that I wanted to conduct opera."
Having the awareness and executing the career plan were two different things, however. After a summer apprenticeship with an opera company in New Hampshire, Osgood returned to New York and sent out resumes. He had three job offers, one of which was from The Amato Opera Theater, a repertoire company dedicated to presenting standard opera classics while offering a platform for aspiring young artists.
It was a perfect place to begin, and Osgood stayed three years, playing the piano, conducting the chamber ensemble, and immersing himself in the ethos of opera. It was from the company's founder Tony Amato that, he says, "I learned everything I know now."
It was there, too, that he learned about career progression, the power of networking and the importance of word of mouth for the next opportunity. "Operatic conducting has a career ladder you just start climbing, rung by rung, connection by connection," Osgood says. Ten years later, although he's climbed far, he still sees more rungs above.
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