In Germany and other European nations where Whitney Reader has been a conductor over the last 15 years, opera is a way of life. Supported by the government, European opera houses are run differently than in the U.S., with singers engaged permanently at the opera house and shows regularly performed throughout the week.

It’s something Reader would love to see more of in Wichita — making opera part of everyday life. The 41-year-old Wichita native made the transatlantic move from Germany to Kansas last month to take over as general and music director of the Wichita Grand Opera. And he hopes to bring some of what he experienced in Germany to Wichita.

“One of my goals is to make opera more accessible to people — not just the elite. Once people can connect with this art form, they can recognize its pertinence and universal appeal,” Reader said. “People don't need to be compelled into loving music, just reminded, perhaps, that they already do. Opera may represent uncharted waters for audience members, but beyond all clichés, the music and the stories are timeless, universal.”

The son of Dr. G. Whitney and Eva-Marie Reader of Wichita, the younger Reader earned a bachelor’s degree in violin and a master’s in conducting at Wichita State University before moving to Germany to work as a pianist and conductor. “While I never intended to spend the rest of my life in Europe, I wanted to be closer to the fountainhead of all this music for a time,” he said. “Not only was all this great music composed there, but it has been cherished and kept alive there for centuries; many great performance traditions were created on the continent over time, and I felt that going there was the best way to absorb these — by

being immersed in them.”

“People don't need to be compelled into loving music, just reminded, perhaps, that they already do.” — Whitney Reader

Moving to Germany made sense to Reader on many different levels: Not only could he immerse himself in the musical heritage there, but he could spend time with his grandparents who lived in Germany. Reader’s mother is German, so the Reader children grew up with German as their first spoken language.

Working his way up in the world of conducting in Germany, Reader landed a job at an opera house in Düsseldorf, a city in western Germany known for its fashion industry and art scene. He traveled and worked in various countries, and along the way had opportunities to guest conduct in places like Italy, Norway, Denmark, Spain, Switzerland and Cyprus. At the time of this interview he was giving a masterclass at the opera in Warsaw, Poland.

WGO general and artistic director Alan Held said the Wichita arts community will benefit from Reader’s skills and energy. “He has talents that are unique to someone who has spent a great amount of time working with artists on an international stage,” said Held, who plans to advise the new director and company on artistic matters for the foreseeable future. Held, an internationally acclaimed baritone who joined WGO leadership in 2019, will continue duties as a voice professor and director of opera at WSU, and as the director of sacred music at The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Wichita, all while pursuing his own singing career.

Reader has worked with Held during visits to the WGO, including a collaboration last spring in a performance of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni,” of which Reader is particularly proud, since most other opera companies in America — and the world — were dark due to Covid. “I have a tremendous amount of respect for Alan,” Reader said. “He has been a big inspiration to me as an artist and as a person. It's been the privilege of a lifetime to work with him. I’m certainly following in other people’s footsteps.”

Making Music

Music was always important to Reader growing up. He and his siblings frequently played together and even had a string quartet. “My parents wanted us to have music in our lives,” he said. “We had a wonderful theory teacher at WSU — Walter Mays, who is also an acclaimed composer; he and his wife would come over often with stacks of music and we would play for hours on end. They had a big impact on me and I think on all of us.”

Opera, however, was not on Reader’s radar. “There was no opera in Wichita when I was growing up, and had there been, I likely would have had little to no interest anyway,” he said with a laugh. But just as opera was returning to Wichita (WGO was formed in 2000), so too was opera making its mark on Reader. Eventually the two intersected, and Reader played violin for WGO’s inaugural concerts featuring Luciano Pavarotti and Plácido Domingo, consecutively, and served as principal pianist and assistant conductor for WGO’s very first opera production in 2003, Bizet’s “Carmen,” performed at Bradley Fair. In the last decade, Reader has had multiple opportunities to conduct the WGO, including “Madama Butterfly” in 2011, “The

Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber” in 2018, “All is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914” in 2019, and most

recently, “Don Giovanni.”

Reader said that, although he has loved his time living abroad, he is ready to make a return to the states. “It’s been a colorful time; it’s been a wonderful run,” he said. “But I knew that I didn't want to stay in Germany forever, so when this opportunity became a reality, it made all the sense in the world.”

The first thing he wants to do after taking the helm at WGO is to start performing operas with more frequency, and working to continue to engender enthusiasm for opera in Wichita, beginning with a performance Feb. 11 with violinist Caroline Campbell that he says will be highly entertaining. “She is a phenomenal violinist in every sense — a real virtuoso — and puts on a spectacular performance,” he said.

Reader would also like to start mounting more American pieces. “Italian opera’s great, German opera’s great, but there’s great American opera, too. For one thing, they’re in English, and some of the subject matter is more American,” he said. One of his long-term goals is seeing an actual opera house built in Wichita. It would generate a lot of interest in the opera, he said, and could be a spectacular venue for opera, symphony or dance.

Dr. Dennis Ross, WGO board chairman emeritus, said he has gotten to know the young conductor through the Reader family and through WGO, and is excited to have him on board. “He’s young and energetic and I hope he attracts some younger people,” Ross said. “He loves all kinds of music, so although he may be an opera guy, he’s willing to do things outside of pure opera, as long as it’s done well. He has a lot of enthusiasm, and I think he will bring new life to the opera and to Wichita’s cultural scene in general.”

Reader is ready for the task: “There’s a lot of work to be done. It’s exciting because — aptly, for the Air Capital of the World — the sky’s the limit.”