Music Director, Pittsburgh Opera
Artistic Director, Washington Concert Opera
Founding Artistic Director and Conductor Emeritus, Pinchgut Opera

Fletcher Artist Management represents the artist in North America.

The 2019-2020 season marks Music Director Antony Walker’s fourteenth season at Pittsburgh Opera. Original engagements during the COVID-19 shortened 2019-2020 season include productions of Don Giovanni, Florencia en el Amazonas, Alcina, and Norma. With Washington Concert Opera, where he serves as Artistic Director, he will conduct productions of Hamlet and Simon Boccanegra. Also this season, Maestro Walker will conduct La Rondine for the Peabody Conservatory, Le nozze di Figaro at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music and Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi with Opera San Antonio.

Maestro Walker made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 2011 with Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridiceand has returned to The Met since then to conduct Il barbiere di Siviglia, The Pearl Fishers and The Magic Flute. Maestro Walker enjoys superlative reviews not only for his Pittsburgh Opera productions, but also his recent concert performances of Massenet’s rarely-performed Hérodiade and Beethoven’s Leonore at Washington Concert Opera.

In 2010, Maestro Walker made debuts at English National Opera in Lucia di Lammermoor, at Canadian Opera Company in Maria Stuarda, and at The Santa Fe Opera in Madama Butterfly. In 2016 Maestro Walker was proud to conduct Rossini’s monumental Semiramide in Florence, Italy, where the operatic art form was born.

He currently serves as Artistic Director of Washington Concert Opera in Washington D.C., founding Artistic Director and Conductor Emeritus of Pinchgut Opera in Australia, and was Music Director of Cantillation and the Orchestra of the Antipodes for almost 2 decades. He was Chorus Master and Staff Conductor for Welsh National Opera from 1998–2002 and Musical Director of Sydney Philharmonia Choirs from 1992–1997. Since his conducting debut in 1991, Maestro Walker has led nearly 200 operas, large-scale choral and orchestral works, and numerous symphonic and chamber works with companies in Europe, North America, and Australia.

His extraordinary career includes engagements with Opera Australia, Welsh National Opera, New York City Opera, Teatro Comunale Bologna, Orchestre Colonne (Paris), Wolf Trap Opera, Merola Program at the San Francisco Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Glimmerglass Festival, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Vancouver Opera, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and Sydney Opera House Orchestra.

Washington Concert Opera – Sapho

Antony Walker conducted the capable WCO orchestra with grace and aplomb, leading them in expressive phrasing that painted the picture of the isle of Lesbos and the raging sea. ”

Erin Ridge, MD Theatre Guide

“Antony Walker led the WCO Orchestra with lively gestures and an authoritative knowledge of the score.”

Charles T. Downey, Washington Classical Review

Pittsburgh Opera – Le nozze di Figaro

With…Antony Walker’s expert leadership in the orchestra pit…the opening night audience participated quite personally in the drama on stage.

Conductor Walker allowed singers to ornament their lines (in Mozartean style).”

Robert Croan, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“Conductor Antony Walker set the pace from the first note of the overture by vigorously following Mozart’s marking of presto…

Antony Walker and his brilliant orchestra dove into the music at a brisk and exhilarating pace that was maintained where appropriate and moderated throughout in accordance with the composer’s notations.”

George B. Parous, Pittsburgh in the Round

Pittsburgh Opera – Tosca

…conductor Antony Walker led the orchestra and characters on stage in a tightly knit, dramatically compelling performance that brought this operatic chestnut vividly to life.”

Robert Croan, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“Conductor Antony Walker, in his twelfth season leading the Pittsburgh Opera Orchestra, was in complete command from the opening crashing chords of Scarpia’s theme, and secured an especially sensitive performance from the brass section, which cues so many crucial moments in the story.”

John S. Twinam, Opera Wire

“There was a great deal to delight the ear as well. Antony Walker and the orchestra gave a performance that would have thrilled Puccini himself. This gifted group can always be counted on for excellence, but last night the score received a powerful interpretation in the many passages which require a gripping instrumental accompaniment and balanced these with those needing a more delicate sound quite exquisitely.”

George B. Parous, Pittsburgh in the Round

Wolf Trap Opera – The Touchstone

And the whole thing was given added buoyancy by the conducting of Antony Walker, the artistic director of Washington Concert Opera and a known bel canto specialist. You couldn’t see him in the Wolf Trap pit, but you could practically feel him bouncing on his feet.”

Anne Midgette, The Washington Post

“Conductor Anthony Walker and his thirty-piece ensemble brought Rossini’s music to life.  Somehow that wonderful sound manages to project out of the tiny box that is The Barns orchestra pit.  Although Rossini wrote this opera when he was only twenty years old, it is spot on Rossini.  The ensemble arias are delightful and the Wolf Trap Opera chorus is excellent.  You will enjoy the music.”

Mike Rogers, OperaGene

Pittsburgh Opera – The Summer King

…superb musical realization under Antony Walker…”

Robert Croan, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Opera di Firenze – Semiramide

The Australian conductor Antony Walker drew an outstanding performance from the Maggio Musicale Orchestra and led an international cast…”

Matteo Sansone, Opera

Pinchgut Opera – Armida

The Orchestra of the Antipodes, the house band for Pinchgut Opera, made a stirring case for Haydn’s rarely performed Armida … under its founding musical and artistic director Antony Walker in his final appearance as Pinchgut’s co-artistic director.”
Deborah Jones, Opera

Washington Concert Opera – La Favorite

In Walker’s hands, the kinship between La favorite and Verdi’s mature style was particularly apparent. Donizetti’s music for Alphonse XI, the King of Castile, would dovetail perfectly with Verdi’s music for the Conte di Luna in Il trovatore, and Fernand’s high-centered vocal lines might be uttered just as convincingly by Henri in Les vêpres sicilienne. Balthazar’s scenes might have been cut from the same cloth as similar episodes in La forza del destino and Don Carlos. Without applying pressure greater than the music can withstand, Walker’s approach made Donizetti as much a peer of Verdi, Ponchielli, and Boito as of Rossini and Bellini, and the lesson in this is unmistakably legitimized by the composers’ bodies of work. Rodolfo’s ‘Quando le sere al placido’ in Verdi’s Luisa Miller is a close relative of Fernand’s ‘Ange si pur,’ and what is la Cieca’s ‘Voce di donna’ in Ponchielli’s La gioconda if not bel canto? Walker’s tempi were consistently appropriate for music and musicians, and he enhanced the continuity of the score by refusing to linger over ‘purple’ passages. Every emotion, gleeful or doleful, was given its due but not allowed to dominate unless its domination was clearly Donizetti’s intention. The circumstances of the company’s performances prohibit extensive periods of rehearsal, but such was Walker’s commitment—and the commitment that he inspired in his colleagues on the Lisner Auditorium stage—that this La favorite sounded like the culmination of a lifetime of study and preparation.”

Joseph Newsome, Voix des Artes

“Under the baton of WCO’s music director Antony Walker, the WCO orchestra gave a fine reading of this infrequently performed score, blending perfectly with the soloists and the company’s fine chorus which sang with great passion and feeling throughout.”

Terry Ponick, Communities Digital News

Pinchgut Opera – Iphigénie en Tauride Live Recording

a performance out of the ordinary has reached CD… Two interpretative features stand out: justness of overall performing style on the part of every participant, with particularly vigorous choral delivery, and masterly conducting. From the opening, it’s clear that Antony Walker, an experienced Gluckian, is also an unusually sensitive one… he achieves an unfolding both secure and keenly responsive to the content of sounds and silence. Particularly notable is the pathos sustained throughout the third act, most intimate of the four. In other hands it can lose intensity – not here. … This [recording] is alive from start to finish.”

Max Loppert, BBC Music Magazine

“Walker’s stylish, spirited pacing of a wide repertory has been showcased in opera houses and concert halls throughout the world, and this recording confirms that his command of Gluck’s music is no less noteworthy than his mastery of Nineteenth-Century opera. Under Walker’s direction, the playing of Pinchgut Opera’s resident period-instrument ensemble, Orchestra of the Antipodes, is as red-blooded and large-scaled as Gluck’s score requires… This is a testament both to Gluck’s talent for molding coherent music dramas and to Walker’s intelligent handling of the music.”

Joseph Newsome, Voix des Artes

“There can certainly be no argument as to the dramatic involvement inspired by Antony Walker, who after launching the opening storm with real ferocity subsequently handles the score’s more energetic passages with thrusting fervour…”

Brian Robins, Opera

Pittsburgh Opera – Nabucco

The most famous part of the opera is “Va, pensiero,” the chorus of Hebrew slaves yearning to return home from captivity. It was beautifully paced by conductor Antony Walker and particularly well sung by Pittsburgh Opera Chorus. Conductor Walker provided a brilliant interpretation, equally sympathetic to music’s “bel canto” style and the bigger vision of the young Verdi. Pittsburgh Opera Orchestra was at the top of its game, playing with panache and refinement.”

Mark Kenny, Pittsburgh Tribune

“The orchestral element was well handled by conductor Antony Walker. The rum-tum theme in the Overture bristled with vitality, and the foretaste of “Va, pensiero” made a mellifluous beginning.”

Robert Croan, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

West Australian Opera – Le nozze di Figaro

In the hands of conductor Antony Walker (Pinchgut Opera), Mozart’s musical slapstick, harmonic suspense and exquisite lingering melodies have maximum impact.”

Rosalind Appleby, The West Australian

Pittsburgh Opera – Carmen

Antony Walker, as usual, conducted the orchestra with a sure hand and fine grasp of the score.”

George B. Parous, The Pittsburgh Stage Online Magazine

“Conducting the Pittsburgh Opera Orchestra, Antony Walker drew out energetic tutti playing and affecting details, such as chamber-like sections from the woodwinds and brass.”

Elizabeth Bloom, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Washington Concert Opera – Guntram

…But this is hardly the first opera with a weak plot. And there is more than enough compensation from a score that boasts the unmistakable stamp of Strauss — long, irresistible melodic arcs; luscious harmonic turns; prismatic orchestration. These attributes emerged with consistent potency on this occasion, thanks to a fiery cast and the sweeping approach of conductor Antony Walker, who paced the opera (in the revised version unveiled in 1940) with a great sense of momentum that still allowed for affecting breadth of phrasing.”

Tim Smith, Opera News

Washington National Opera – Dialogue of the Carmelites

Maestro Antony Walker leads the WNO Orchestra with ease and gusto. Perfectly balanced under the singers, the orchestra maintains an intensity that makes Poulenc’s brilliant orhcestrations sparkle.”

Itai Yasur, Broadway World

Pinchgut Opera – Iphigénie en Tauride

Conducted with a breadth of conception yet an ever-present sense of the momentum of the drama by Anthony Walker, all of the principals acquit themselves with admirable elegance and sense of style.”

Michael Halliwell, The Conversation

“Musically, this production is in safe hands. Antony Walker conducts a generous-sized Orchestra of the Antipodes with a tight, fizzing beat. He brings out Gluck’s expanding orchestral palette in all its technicolour glory, with period bassoons and trombones a real treat.”

Harriet Cunningham, The Sydney Morning Herald

“Conductor Antony Walker delivers the force of Gluck’s music with warmth and vigour from a tight-knit Orchestra of the Antipodes. The score is plentiful in exposed orchestral playing which showcases the richness of the musicianship, all but for the odd straying horn and oboe. Squashed between the front row and the raised temple steps, their proximity to the cast ensured inclusiveness from which Maestro Walker comfortably supports his performers.”

Paul Selar, Bachtrack

“The Orchestra of the Antipodes, on period instruments, was conducted by Antony Walker, with concert master Brendan Joyce, and Erin Helyard on harpsichord. As ever, Walker led a nuanced and virtuosic performance.”

Sandra Bowdler, Opera Brittania

Pittsburgh Opera – Orphée

Company music director Antony Walker led a performance that was both decisive and sensitive, with shrewdly judged dynamics. The orchestra played superbly.”

Mark Kanny, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Pittsburgh Opera – La bohème

Conducted by music director Antony Walker, the orchestra captured the score’s diverse emotional character…”

Elizabeth Bloom, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“But, first and foremost, Puccini’s music pulls us in with its captivating melodies and luscious harmonies. The Pittsburgh Opera presents this gorgeous music, performed by a wonderful, evenly talented cast and the Pittsburgh Opera Orchestra. The orchestra, under the direction of music director Antony Walker, has developed a continuity we have come to rely on for its expressive, musical performances.”

Joseph Beiro, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Opera Australia – Carmen

Anthony Walker maintained a brisk energy in the pit, if sometimes at the expense of textual clarity, as in the quintet, or perhaps for the want of a more lascivious Habanera, but he drew excellent playing from the orchestra in which, particularly, the woodwind crackled like flames.”

David Vance, Sydney Morning Herald

“The production has another major asset in the form of conductor Antony Walker in the pit. From the first beat of his thrillingly driven overture onwards he reminds us of the sheer genius of Bizet’s memorable score and his growing reputation before his tragically early demise as France’s great musical colourist. Walker has ideas in terms of balance, tempi and phrasing and isn’t afraid to use them – listen to the exquisite entr’actes with their lovingly detailed (and played) solos for flute, bassoon, clarinet and oboe – or the soaring strings in the interlude before the bullfight. It’s a joy to be carried along by his zesty reading of a score that in lesser hands can sound over-familiar or routine.”

Clive Paget, Limelight

Pittsburgh Opera – Die Zauberflöte

Walker deserves much of the credit for the evening’s success. His pacing and balancing within the orchestra served the music well.”

Mark Kanny, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review