Maestro Evans Haile - Celebrating 20 years as Musical Director and Conductor
Gainesville’s Evans Haile has received international acclaim as a producer, conductor and performer in a variety of communication fields.
Evans is currently the executive director of the award-winning York Theatre Company in New York City, and he is the winner of the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Obie and Lucille Lortel Awards. He is also the general director of Opera North in NH, creating a new National Park for the Arts in partnership with the National Park Service, as well being the artistic/music director of The Gainesville Orchestra in Florida.
He is responsible for reopening and acting as producing artistic director of the North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly, Massachusetts, and he was the producing artistic director of the historic Cape Playhouse (the oldest professional summer theatre in America) in Dennis, Massachusetts, for over 15 years.
International achievements include supervising and conducting the Australian premiere of Heitor Villa-Lobos’ “Magdalena,” concert tours of Russia and Europe, including the European premiere of Gershwin’s Second Rhapsody for piano and orchestra. He has been a regular guest conductor of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein and the Boston Pops Orchestra amongst others.
Other orchestras and opera companies include Baltimore, Boston, Detroit, Florida Orchestra, Florida Grand Opera, Grant Park, New Jersey, Pacific Symphony, Sarasota, Tulsa, National Opera in Washington, DC and others.
Evans assisted legendary French conductor Manuel Rosenthal on Wagner’s “Ring Cycle” and was part of the creative team at the famed Seattle Opera “Ring” productions for over four years.
At Lincoln Center he produced and conducted Villa-Lobos’s “Magdalena” (recorded for CBS Masterworks), Rodgers and Harts “Babes in Arms,” (recorded for New World Records) and created the new performing edition of Cole Porter’s “Fifty Million Frenchmen” (named best recording of the year by USA Today). His performing edition of Frenchmen has been performed in London, Paris, San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York. He created the official concert version of Meredith Willson’s “The Music Man” commissioned by the Willson estate, which has been performed across North America. His acclaimed production of Gershwin and Kaufman’s “Of Thee I Sing” utilizing the original 1932 orchestrations was videotaped for The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.
As a host, performer and commentator, Evans toured the United States in “Haile to America” an irreverent celebration of 100 years of American popular music. He produced and hosted National Public Radio’s “A Song For..” series over the course of five years. He has been profiled twice on “CBS Sunday Morning,” and he was the co-founder of the award-winning New Amsterdam Theater company at The Town Hall in New York City.
Evans is very proud to have been a beneficiary of the National Endowment of the Arts.