KYLE NAIG
CONDUCTOR | PIANIST | COACH | ARRANGER
About Kyle
“Kyle Naig
conducts with flair from the harpsichord.”
- LA Times
Kyle Naig is a conductor, pianist, and coach from Des Moines, Iowa. He is a recent graduate of the Houston Grand Opera Studio, where he worked on productions of Aïda, Saul, Don Giovanni, Florencia en el Amazonas, and La bohème, as well as the premiere workshop of El milagro del recuerdo in Mexico City. In the 2023/24 season, he looks forward to several conducting engagements, including Il barbiere di Siviglia with both Pacific Opera Project and Penn Square Music Festival, as well as a double bill of Dido and Aeneas and the world premiere of Jodi Goble's Meow and Forever with San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Into the Woods with Simpson Productions. He is the pianist for Sonic Blossom, a participatory performance in the exhibition Lee Mingwei: Rituals of Care at the de Young Museum in San Francisco.
Kyle spent the summer of 2022 as principal pianist/coach/backstage conductor for Carmen at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, led by Principal Conductor Daniela Candillari. In the 2022/23 season, he served as music director and conductor at both Intermountain Opera Bozeman (Into the Woods) and Opera Orlando (Gianni Schicchi/La cambiale di matrimonio), and he was heard in recital with tenor Duke Kim at The Florentine Opera. Returning to Pacific Opera Project twice, he conducted The Elixir of Love and then served as conductor, music director, continuo harpsichordist, and arranger for the US premiere of Vivaldi's Ercole su'l Termodonte.
In the summer of 2021 he was Associate Conductor for Sweeney Todd at Des Moines Metro Opera, and in 2020 he arranged and conducted a double bill of Gluck operas as well as a new version of Così fan tutte from the harpsichord for Pacific Opera Project.
Kyle has appeared as music staff at many American opera companies, including The Dallas Opera, Opera Santa Barbara, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, The Glimmerglass Festival, North Carolina Opera, Virginia Opera, Opera Memphis, Intermountain Opera Bozeman, Cedar Rapids Opera, and Des Moines Metro Opera. Since 2022, he has held a faculty music staff at San Francisco Conservatory, while also maintaining an active schedule as a recitalist and arranger.
"... at once showed the skill of the small band [which was] propulsively directed by Kyle Naig at the keyboard."
"The three-part introductory sinfonia, self-borrowed by Vivaldi from his earlier opera Armida, at once showed the skill of POP’s small band of 18th century-clad and bewigged players, with clean, virtually vibrato-free articulation from the string quintet (two cellos), led by concertmistress Boryana Popova and underpinned by Jason Yoshida on the long-necked theorbo, and all propulsively directed by Kyle Naig at the keyboard. The numerous brief instrumental coverings of scene changes [selected and] added by [Naig] featured some exquisite oboe and flute solos, with a stentorian trumpet occasionally added to the mix."
- LA Opus Review: ERCOLE SU'L TERMODONTE