Brian Dickie

Brian Dickie was born in England in 1941 and joined Glyndebourne Festival as an administrative assistant in the Music and Planning Departments in 1962. From 1967 to 1973 he was Artistic Director of the Wexford Festival and simultaneously the first Administrator of Glyndebourne Touring Opera where a high proportion of the leading British singers begin their careers. From 1973 to 1984 he was Artistic Adviser successively to the theatres in Angers, Nancy and the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. In 1981 he became General Administrator of Glyndebourne Festival Opera where he worked with many distinguished Directors and Conductors including Peter Hall, Trevor Nunn, Nikolaus Lehnhoff, Peter Sellars, Bernard Haitink, Simon Rattle, and Andrew Davis.

Brian held the post of General Director of the Canadian Opera Company from 1989 to 1993 and from 1994 to 1997 was Artistic Adviser to the Opéra de Nice and Adviser to the International Youth Foundation during the formation of the European Union Opera. He was General Director of the European Union Opera's Baden-Baden and Paris season in 1998 prior to joining Chicago Opera Theater as General Director in September 1999.

In the last five years this company’s growing reputation has brought it great applause, most notably after its 2002 performances of Orfeo in the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Monteverdi cycle. After the extraordinary success of his first season with the company he was honored by the Chicago Tribune as a Chicagoan of the Year in the Arts for 2000. This award was repeated in 2002.

In addition to serving as General Director of COT he has been Chairman of the International Jury for Preselections for the Bertelsmann Foundation's Neue Stimmen Competition since 1999. In this capacity in the summer of 2011 he will audition more than 800 singers in Europe, the US, South and Central America, and Australia.