Dennis Gotkowski, Resident Conductor

Dennis Gotkowski, MIOpera’s Resident Conductor, serves in a multifaceted role as conductor, vocal coach, and pianist. Recent conducting credits include MIOpera performances of Carmen, The Sound of Music, Amahl and the Night Visitors, La Bohème, and Les Contes d’Hoffmann, as well as Illinois State University’s 2022 production of Legally Blonde. He has music directed numerous productions in the Bloomington-Normal area. 

In recent years, Gotkowski has performed as a tenor soloist with Concordia University Wisconsin (Haydn’s Creation), the Madison Area Youth Chamber Orchestra (Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings), Madison Savoyards (The Mikado), UW Opera, Prairie Fire Theatre, and Dramatic Crossroads. His roles include Ferrando (Così fan tutte), Mayor Upfold (Albert Herring), Little Bat (Susannah), Basilio (Le nozze di Figaro), and Rumpelstiltskin/Wonderful Musician (Conrad Susa’s Transformations), a role he recorded on an upcoming album. He has also served on the voice faculty at ISU, teaching voice as well as French and German diction.

In addition to singing and conducting, Gotkowski is an active performer as a collaborative pianist, harpsichordist, and organist. He passionately strives to highlight the music of women composers for modern audiences; his recitals have featured the works of Clara Wieck Schumann, Alma Maria Mahler Gropius Werfel, Florence Price, Rebecca Clarke, Pauline Viardot-Garcia, Lili Boulanger, and Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, among others. He prepared an edition of Maria Margherita Grimani’s 1713 operatic work Pallade e Marte as his dissertation.

Gotkowski received his doctorate in voice performance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he studied voice with James Doing and collaborative piano with Martha Fischer. He holds a master’s degree in voice performance and choral conducting from Illinois State University and a bachelor’s degree in vocal performance from Illinois Wesleyan University.