Maria Sensi Sellner

Celebrated for her “masterful hand and oneness with the music” (OnStage Pittsburgh), American conductor Maria Sensi Sellner is a sought-after collaborator and visionary impresario for the 21st century. The first three-time winner of the American Prize for Opera Conducting and a proud alumnus of The Dallas Opera’s Hart Institute for Women Conductors, Ms. Sensi Sellner is known for her passionate artistry and versatility. She is the founder and Artistic and General Director of Resonance Works, a visionary, genre-defying performing arts organization committed to socially relevant, innovative productions of new and rarely performed works. She was selected for the competitive Opera America Leadership Intensive in 2023. 

Ms. Sensi Sellner is regarded for her mastery of bel canto and contemporary music, as well as her interpretations of the works of Giuseppe Verdi and J.S. Bach. On the opera stage, she has recently conducted Nabucco and Hansel and Gretel for Opera Ithaca,  When the Sun Comes Out for Portland Opera, Cavalleria rusticana for Lyric Opera of the  North, Don Giovanni for Fargo-Moorhead Opera, Il barbiere di Siviglia for Opera  Steamboat, Cosí fan tutte for the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and was on the music staff for Romeo et Juliette at The Dallas Opera. Ms. Sensi Sellner is equally at home in  concert repertoire, and is a frequent cover conductor for the Pittsburgh Symphony  Orchestra. 

At Resonance Works, Ms. Sensi Sellner has presided over Macbeth, Cendrillon, Jorge Sosa’s  I Am A Dreamer Who No Longer Dreams, Reena Esmail’s This Love Between Us, Rigoletto, Rusalka, Falstaff, On the Town, and Bach’s Magnificat, B Minor Mass, and St. John Passion,  among many others. In spring of 2024 she leads the first U.S. performances of Rossini’s La  donna del lago since the Met’s 2015 production. In the 2024-25 season she will conduct  Rachel Portman’s The Little Prince, Joel Thompson’s Seven Last Words of the  Unarmed, Julia Perry’s Stabat Mater, Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, and Gaetano  Donizetti’s Anna Bolena. 

As the Artistic and General Director of Resonance Works, Ms. Sensi Sellner’s unique, artist driven programming has been praised for its “innovative streak” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) and for bringing a “welcome infusion of sophistication and diversity” (I Care If You Listen)  to Pittsburgh’s cultural landscape. In its 11 seasons, Resonance Works has proudly  presented 13 world premieres, as well as dozens of local and regional premieres. In 2018,  led by Ms. Sensi Sellner, Resonance Works made a commitment to programming at least  half of the works in a season by women and a third by BIPOC creators — a goal they have  achieved or surpassed every year. A passionate advocate for contemporary opera, she is  also the co-founder and lead producer of the Decameron Opera Coalition, a collective of  independent opera companies leveraging their creativity and resources to cultivate new  works. 

Previously, Ms. Sensi Sellner was Acting Music Director of the Mendelssohn Choir of  Pittsburgh (the chorus of choice for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra), Director of the  Akron Symphony Chorus, interim faculty at the Carnegie Mellon University School of  Music, and was Director of the Carnegie Mellon All University Orchestras for a decade. She  holds master’s degrees in conducting, composition, and mechanical engineering from  Carnegie Mellon University. 

mariasensisellner.org

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