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Background

Equally at home on the concert stage, opera podium and coaching studio, Curt Pajer has forged a teaching and performing career that balances collaborative piano, vocal coaching and conducting. 

For 15 years, he served as the musical and managing director of opera and musical theater at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music; prior to that, he was the head of music staff at both the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and the Wexford Festival Opera. He has also served as an assistant conductor and vocal coach at prestigious opera houses and festivals, including New York City Opera, San Francisco Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Dallas Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, San Diego Opera, Opera Colorado, Prague National Theater (Czech Republic), the Nissei Theater (Tokyo), New York Philharmonic, Bard SummerScape, Palm Beach Opera, Toledo Opera and Baltimore Opera. In 2025, he joined the faculty of the Prague Summer Nights festival.

As an operatic conductor, Pajer’s repertoire ranges from Mozart to world premieres, including the Mozart/DaPonte trilogy, La Clemenza di Tito, Gianni Schicchi, Suor Angelica, L’enfant et les sortilèges, Hansel and Gretel, Ariadne auf Naxos, Zanetto, Une education manquée, Docteur Miracle, Les mamelles de Tirésias, Postcard from Morocco and Glory Denied. He also led a complete cycle of Benjamin Britten's chamber operas in San Francisco. A champion of modern opera, Pajer conducted the West Coast premiere of Jonathan Dove’s Mansfield Park and The Enchanted Pig, as well as the world premiere of William Bolcom's orchestrated version of his opera Lucrezia. In 2021, San Francisco's classical radio station KDFC broadcast Pajer's recording of Giancarlo Menotti's The Old Maid and the Thief; it was recorded with soloists and orchestra during the COVID-19 lockdown, using state-of-the-art closed-circuit audio and video technology with the singers and orchestral musicians in separate rooms. 

Pajer is also an active recitalist, most recently performing with renowned soprano Lisette Oropesa at the opening night concert of Festival Napa Valley

Education

• Doctor of Musical Arts, Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University
• Master of Music, Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University
  
• Bachelor of Music, Oberlin Conservatory

Teaching Interests

• Opera Workshop
• Vocal Coaching
• Vocal Literature