John DeMain

John DeMain, long-time music director of the Madison Symphony Orchestra and artistic director of the Madison Opera, joins Norman in WPR’s performance studio. He will conduct the Madison Symphony Orchestra at the Overture Center in Madison in a program called “The Gershwin Legacy.” The performance includes soloists Emily Birsan, Soprano; Karen Olivo, Mezzo-Soprano; Ron Raines, Baritone and Garrick Olsen, Piano.

Mr. DeMain has conducted the world premières of Leonard Bernstein’s A Quiet Place (1983), John Adams’s Nixon in China (1987), Michael Tippett’s New Year (1989) and the United States première of Philip Glass’s Akhnaten. His 1976 recording of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess won a “Grammy” and remains a benchmark interpretation of this American masterpiece.