Nicholas Gilmore is an active conductor in North America, regularly leading operatic, orchestral, choral, chamber, and musical theater performances. He has served in Music Director positions for the Denver Young Artist Conservatory Orchestras, Ozark Family Opera, and The Halifax Summer Opera Festival in Nova Scotia. He also served as Artistic Director of Heartland Opera Theatre in Joplin, Missouri for six seasons, and four seasons as the Music Director and Conductor of Loveland Opera Theatre in Loveland, Colorado.

 

In 2020 Gilmore led the most attended concert of the season of the Greeley Philharmonic in their “Poinsettia Pops” featuring the full Greeley Chorale, Greeley Children’s Chorus, and soloist Dr. Charles Moore. He was then invited back in 2024 to conduct the popular 4th of July Concert to a nearly sold out crowd. Gilmore has led performances of The Kansas Dance Festival Ballet, The Wichita Contemporary Music Festival, Open Space New Music Festival, Opera on the Avalon in Newfoundland, Colorado’s Candlelight Dinner Playhouse, Loveland Opera Theatre, Opera Fort Collins, and Pacific Opera Project in Los Angeles among others. He has appeared as a special guest artist at Missouri Southern State University, Crowder College, Wichita State University, and the University of Northern Colorado where he also served for the 2014 spring semester as Director of Orchestras.

 

From the pit, Gilmore has conducted over 60 productions in the United States and Canada. Performances of L’elisir d’amore for Pacific Opera Project were called “fiercely conducted” by LA’s Splash Magazines, and Opera Today wrote, “Gilmore’s light, airy but propulsive reading of the score captured both its comedy and its underlying sentiment.” OnStage Colorado called his recent production of Brigadoon with Loveland Opera “incredibly well performed… They even have a light so Gilmore’s shadow can be seen on the wall. It’s such a thrill so hear such a rich, full orchestra…” During his tenure as Artistic Director of Heartland Opera Theatre, the company experienced massive growth, both artistically and financially, becoming the strongest regional voice for quality opera in Southwest Missouri. The Joplin Globe said of Gilmore's leadership, it was “exactly what fine art should be.”

 

As a speaker, Gilmore has appeared at universities, colleges, conferences and summer programs in the US and Canada. He has lectured many times from the podium in Paul O’Regan Hall as part of a summer opera lecture series in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The well attended series attracted the attention of Opera Canada, saying in a review of his presentation on operas of female composers that, “Musical Director Nicholas Gilmore offered an animated, informative explanation of the musical traditions in which these composers wrote and of the historical and contextual development of their music.” They went on to say, “Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann was performed at St. James Dunn Theater, also under Gilmore’s keen musical direction, exuding remarkable energy.” In 2014 Gilmore was invited to speak at the Missouri Music Educators State Conference on program building and fundraising, and was voted one of the most effective and useful presentations of the conference by state educators. 

 

Gilmore has taught at Missouri Southern State University, The University of Northern Colorado, Laramie County Community College, and Crowder College, teaching private horn, voice, vocal diction and literature, music theory, ear training, and introductory music history courses, in addition to conducting and coaching large and small ensembles. In 2009 he received a Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival Award for “Excellence in Music Direction and Conducting” for his work on George Gershwin’s Lady be Good!.

 

He holds a BM in Horn Performance and an MM in Instrumental Conducting from Wichita State University, where he was named the university-wide Dora Wallace Hodgson Outstanding Masters Student in 2009. He recently finished his coursework for his Doctor of Arts in Orchestral Conducting and Operas Studies at the University of Northern Colorado under Dr. Russell Guyver. Gilmore serves as the Director of Music at First Congregational Church of Greeley where he has led performances of Howard Goodall’s “Invictus,” Dan Forrest’s “The Breath of Life,” and the upcoming North American Premiere of Cecillia McDowell’s “The Ice is Listening.”