Patrick Summers is co-Artistic Director of Aspen Opera Theater and VocalARTS, alongside Renée Fleming. Mr. Summers is the artistic and music director of the Houston Grand Opera. Recent highlights include the Israeli premiere of Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally’s Dead Man Walking with the Israeli Opera, and Calixto Bieito’s production of Carmen at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, Spain. In the 2022–23 season, Mr. Summers will conduct Das Rheingold at the Atlanta Opera. A leading proponent for contemporary American opera and music generally, Maestro Summers has fostered and given more than twenty world premieres, collaborating with many of today’s most prominent and performed composers, among them Carlisle Floyd, Christopher Theofanidis, and Philip Glass. Mr. Summers conducts a wide range of repertoire from Baroque to bel canto to German Romantic, and he has appeared with the Metropolitan Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Dallas Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Rome Opera, Welsh National Opera, Norwegian Opera, the Bregenz Festival, Teatro Nacional de São Carlos, Opéra National de Bordeaux, Opéra national du Rhin, and Opera Australia, among others. He served as principal guest conductor of the San Francisco Opera from 2009–16. Patrick Summers is an artist-faculty member of the New Horizons Program, which is made possible by an endowment gift by Kay and Matthew Bucksbaum.