De Main, John (Lee)
De Main, John (Lee)
De Main, John (Lee) , American conductor; b. Youngstown, Ohio, Jan. 11,1944. He studied with Adele Marcus (piano; B.A., 1966) and Jorge Mester (conducting; M.S., 1968) at the Juilliard School of Music in N.Y He was an asst. conductor at the WNET Opéra project in N.Y. and in 1972 at the N.Y.C. opéra. After serving as assoc. conductor of the St. Paul (Minn.) Chamber Orch. (1972–74), he became music director of the Tex. Opéra Theater in 1975, the touring company of the Houston Grand opéra. In 1978 he was appointed principal conductor of the Houston Grand opéra, serving as its music director from 1980 to 1994; he also was principal conductor of the Chatauqua (N.Y.) Opéra (1982–87) and music director of Opéra Omaha (1983–91). He was music director of the Madison (Wise.) Sym. Orch. and artistic director of the Madison (Wise.) Opéra from 1994. From 1997 he also was music director of Opéra Pacific in Costa Mesa, Calif. In addition to conducting rarely heard WORKS, De Main gave many premiere performances of contemporary opéras.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire