DC's In Series Names Timothy Nelson As Next Artistic Director

Concluding an international search, the board of directors of the In Series - Opera & More has chosen stage director and conductor Timothy Nelson as the new Artistic Director of the nonprofit organization. Nelson succeeds Founding Artistic Director and Executive Producer Carla Hübner, who will retire at the end of the current "Legacy" season, the company's 36th under her leadership including three decades of producing a signature brand of pocket opera.

Nelson makes a triumphant return to the Washington area after nearly a decade of working abroad, in Europe and in North America, directing over 75 productions of opera and theater. He is recognized as a dominant voice for innovation in opera as theater, espousing new approaches to outreach and community engagement, and exploring the future of the art form through a transformative approach to the repertoire. Amsterdam's Handelsblad says "Nelson directs overwhelming and always stunning performances" and The New York Times called Nelson the "The Future of Opera."

From 2002-2012, Nelson served as Artistic Director of the American Opera Theater in Baltimore, directing and/or conducting a diverse body of productions including s staging of Messiah, La Calisto, Jephtha. the American premiers of La Didone and David et Jonathas at the Brooklyn Academy Of Music, and a national tour of his acclaimed circus production of Acis and Galatea. Recent credits include Nederlandse Reiopera's highy acclaimed production of Le Pecheurs de Perles and the Barbican's L'Incoronazione di Poppea, Orphee et Eurydice for Opera Grand Rapids; La Calisto for the English Touring Operar; The Fairy Queen for the Iford Arts Festival ; and The Lighthouse for the Armel Opera Festival in Budapest. Recent projects have included Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria for the Academy of Ancient Music and Barbican Theatre in London, Ballo in Maschera for the Iford Arts Festival, Rigoletto and Madama Butterfly for Sardinia's Festival Ente Concerti, Aureliano in Palmira for the famed Festivale della Valle d'Itria in Martina Franca, Riders to the Sea for Amsterdam's Grachtenfestival, La Voix Humaine for the Residentie Orkest of the Hague, and Giulio Cesare for Opera London.

Nelson most recently served as Artistic Director of the Netherlands Opera Studio and Nieuwe Stemmen of the Rotterdam Opera where he directed a number of unconventional and acclaimed productions, site-specific opera happenings, and new works. This summer he creates a radical re-imagining of Mozart's The Magic Flute as well as Dead Man Walking, and an original production of Hayden's La Fedelta Premiata for the newly resurrected Mumbai Opera House.

He returns to the US to continue and expand Hübner and the In Series' mission of "opera & more". The upcoming 2018-2019 r(E)volution! season, a co-imagined transition season planned with Hübner, will feature the In Series trademark pocket opera, cabaret, and Latino programming, as well as some of Nelson's own signature innovative work combining music and spoken text into fresh and dynamic pieces of theater. The season will be fully announced in April 2018.

In Series Founding Artistic Director Carla Hübner is delighted to welcome Timothy Nelson back to his DC area roots and comments: "What a privilege it is to pass the baton to a premier musician and theater artist who embodies an exciting third chapter of artistic innovation and growth for the In Series. Under Timothy's leadership, the company will add an inspired commitment to the Baroque repertoire and to contemporary work, two ends of the spectrum which we had long dreamed of exploring"

From incoming Artistic Director Elect Timothy Nelson: "I am full of joy and excitement at the honor of succeeding Carla Hübner in leading this unique and dynamic company. I look forward to continuing its mission of intimate and innovative productions that truly speak - that create immediate and arresting dramatic experiences - and to exploring new out-of-the-box ways of presenting, producing, reaching out, and conceiving of opera and cabaret as essential theater for the DC community of today."

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