Praised by Opera News as a conductor who “squeezes every drop of excitement and pathos from the score,” Steven White is one of North America’s premiere operatic and symphonic conductors. He made his acclaimed Metropolitan Opera debut in 2010, conducting performances of La traviata starring Angela Gheorghiu and Thomas Hampson. Since then, he has conducted several Metropolitan Opera performances with such stars as Plácido Domingo, Natalie Dessay, Dmitri Hvorostovksy and Matthew Polenzani.

This season Maestro White returns to the Met to lead seven performances of Julie Taymor’s famed production of The Magic Flute. He also returns to conduct L’elisir d’amore with Utah Opera, where he previously has led productions of Thaïs, Tosca and La traviata.

Steven White is the Principal Guest Conductor of Opera Omaha, where this season he will conduct Patricia Racette’s production of Susannah, in honor of the 100th anniversary of Carlisle Floyd’s birth in 1926. Last season he conducted the fabled David Hockney production of The Rake’s Progress. Other past productions in Omaha include Eugene Onegin, La traviata, Le nozze di Figaro, Rigoletto, Così fan tutte, Il barbiere di Siviglia and the world-premiere staged production of a brand-new Bärenreiter Urtext edition of Gounod’s Faust 

This season brings Maestro White to return engagements as an artist in residence with some of this country’s most prestigious conservatories and artist-training programs. He will lead a production of Falstaff at the Academy of Vocal Arts, where last season he conducted Faust and AVA’s 90th Anniversary Gala Concert, and where he conducted Anna Bolena the previous season.  He also returns to Peabody Conservatory, where he will lead Street Scene in a historic collaboration with Morgan State University. Previous Peabody productions include Dialogues des Carmélites, Le nozze di Figaro and Postcard from Morocco.

He also returns this season for the fourth consecutive year to Brevard Music Center where he will conduct the premiere of Dean Anthony’s brilliant new circus-themed production of The Magic Flute with the Janiec Opera Company. Previous Brevard productions include La bohème, La traviata and Il barbiere di Siviglia.

In 2024 Maestro White made his debut at the San Francisco Opera House conducting the Grand Finale Concert for the Merola Opera Program, having conducted Merola’s Schwabacher Concert the season before. A passionate and dedicated educator, he has served multiple artistic residencies and led productions at such institutions as Indiana University, the College Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati, the University of Miami Frost School of Music Program in Salzburg, Kennesaw State University and Virginia Tech University.

In the summer of 2019 he served as an artist in residence at the Shanghai Conservatory in China, and in 2020 he led a critically acclaimed production of La clemenza di Tito for the North Carolina School of the Arts Fletcher Opera Institute. Maestro White is in constant demand as an adjudicator of the most prestigious music and vocal auditions, such as the Metropolitan Opera’s Laffont Competition and the Jensen Foundation Vocal Competition.

With a vibrant and ever-expanding repertoire of over eighty-five titles, Maestro White’s extensive operatic engagements have included performances with New York City Opera (Don Giovanni, Carmen, La bohème and La traviata), L’Opera de Montréal (Lucia di Lammermoor), San Diego Opera (Rigoletto), Arizona Opera (Rusalka, Eugene Onegin, Ariadne auf Naxos, Aïda, La traviata, Tosca, Don Pasquale, Don Giovanni, Lucia di Lammermoor and The Merry Widow), Vancouver Opera (I puritani, Lucia di Lammermoor and La fille du régiment).

He has also led productions for The Wexford Opera Festival (Félicien David’s rarely performed Lalla-Roukh), Florida Grand Opera (Il Trovatore), Opera Colorado (La traviata), Pittsburgh Opera (L’elisir d’amore), Michigan Opera Theater (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), New Orleans Opera (Lucia di Lammermoor), Austin Opera (Otello and La traviata), Nashville Opera (Pagliacci and Tosca), Opera Birmingham (Le nozze di Figaro, Rigoletto, Madama Butterflyand Roméo et Juliette), Knoxville Opera (Glory Denied), Kentucky Opera (Hänsel und Gretel), Greensboro Opera (Pagliacci and Glory Denied), Tulsa Opera (Rigoletto) and Wichita Grand Opera (Lucia di Lammermoor).

The city of Baltimore has for years been, and continues to be, a significant artistic home for Maestro White. For the Baltimore Opera Company he conducted historically significant productions of L’assedio di Corinto, I puritani and La sonnambula, as well as Roméo et Juliette. For the Lyric Opera of Baltimore he conducted Tosca, La bohème, Madama Butterfly and La traviata, each in collaboration with the Baltimore Symphony. For Baltimore Concert Opera he conductedRigoletto, and in the last two seasons he has conducted Tosca and Carmen for Maryland Opera.

Music critics are effusive in their praise of conductor Steven White’s ability to elicit inspired music-making from orchestras. Of his 2016 performances with the Omaha Symphony, the Omaha World-Herald asserts, “it would be hard to imagine a more complete performance of the Symphonie Fantastique. Highly nuanced, tightly controlled and crisp, Steven White asked everything from orchestra members and they were flawless. He led them out of serene beauty into disturbing dissonance and even to the terrifying point of musical madness without ever losing control. It was insanely good.” Opera News declares, “White is amazing: he consistently demands and gets the absolute best playing from the orchestra.”

​  Among the many orchestras Maestro White has conducted are the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the Moscow Philharmonic, the Utah Symphony, the San Diego Symphony, the Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal, the Mozarteum und Salzburg Kulturvereinigung Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the New World Symphony Orchestra, the Spoleto Festival Orchestra, the Colorado Symphony, the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, the Charleston Symphony, the Florida Philharmonic, the Fort Worth Symphony, and London’s Philharmonia Orchestra for a CHANDOS recording of arias featuring his wife, soprano Elizabeth Futral. He also led the Nashville Sinfonia for the recording of Archetype: Arias for Baritone, featuring two-time grammy-nominated baritone, Stephen Powell.

Steven White proudly makes his home in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, where, in the fall of 2025, he’ll be stepping aside as Artistic Director of Opera Roanoke, a company with which he has been associated for twenty-six years. During his tenure in Roanoke Maestro White has conducted dozens of concerts and over forty production, including Britten’s War Requiem, Verdi’s Requiem, Das Lied von der Erde, Bluebeard’s Castle, Der fliegende Holländer, Fidelio, Falstaff, Otello, Macbeth, Aïda, Rigoletto, Tosca, La bohème, Madama Buttefly, Gianni Schicchi, The Turn of the Screw, Glory Denied and many more. In recognition of his contributions to the civic, cultural, and artistic life of Southwest Virginia, Roanoke College has conferred on Maestro White an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts.