David Gordon (Chairperson, Board of Directors) has been a member of Opera on Tap since the first 2005 bar show in Brooklyn and has sung, directed, and previously served on the Board of Directors for the company. David was an inaugural classroom teaching artist for Opera on Tap’s Playground Opera educational program and script writer for the Virtual Playground program. He is a curator of the New Brew new music collective. After several years of theatrical directing and design study at the University of Michigan, David had a brief career as a theatre technician in NYC (notable for Blue Man Group) before returning to the UofM for a music degree, studying voice under the mentorship of Professor and legendary Metropolitan Opera tenor George Shirley. David went on to earn a full scholarship and Master of Music degree at Manhattan School of Music, where he currently teaches on the voice and opera faculty of the Precollege Division. His students have been accepted at all of the major music conservatory and university music programs in the United States. David currently studies vocal technique with Michael Paul. A specialist in the bad guys, old guys, and monsters of contemporary opera, David has sung with Trilogy: An Opera Company, a Newark-based and artist-led organization dedicated to operatic works by and about African Americans. David holds the dubious distinction of having originated, in Newark, the role of Donald Trump in Anthony Davis’ Pulitzer Prize winning opera (CENTRAL PARK) FIVE, along with founder Kevin Maynor, music director Maestro Julius Williams, director Mark Clayton Southers and the other fine singers of Trilogy:AOC, in November of 2016. David has played terrible and not-so-terrible white guys in several other Trilogy productions, including works by Dorothy Rudd Moore, Thea Musgrave, and Michael Rafael. David has sung many productions and readings of new works with the Center for Contemporary Opera (CCO), including their award-winning production of William Mayer’s A DEATH IN THE FAMILY. With COO, David has also sung works by Peter Westergaard, Rachel Peters, Royce Vavrek, Richard Alan White, Nicola Moro, J. Mark Scearce. David has also sung works by William Bolcom, Benjamin Britten, Deborah Drattell, Henry Mollicone, and Kamala Sankaram. Some favorite roles: Herodes in Strauss’ SALOME; Loge in Wagner’s DAS RHEINGOLD; Spalanzani in Offenbach’s LES COMTES D’HOFFMANN; Elders Gleaton and Hayes in Floyd’s SUSANNAH; Buddy Sorrel in a jazz-opera adaptation of THE LIFE AND LOVES OF JOE COOGAN (an episode of the Dick Van Dyck show). In early 2021, David will be heard as George Papandreiou in the upcoming recording release of ANGELA’S RING, a big-band opera by Marie Incontrera and Kabir Sehgal. As a stage director, David has worked with Ramapo College of New Jersey (Spring Awakening, Urinetown, Trojan Women 2.0, Top Girls by Caryl Churchill), Opera on Tap (Le nozze di Figaro), and Opera Grows in Brooklyn (Filthy Habit, Prairie Dogs from Wild Beasts of the Bungalow), Pied Piper Childrens Theatre (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz) among others.