Damien Geter is an acclaimed American composer who infuses classical music with various styles from the Black diaspora to create music that furthers the cause for social justice, as well as a celebrated bass-baritone – “amazing to listen to. Possessed of a rolling, resonant voice even at the lowest register” (Northwest Reverb) – whose varied credits include performances from the operatic stage to the television screen. He is Richmond Symphony’s Composer-in-Residence through 2026 and serves as Interim Music Director & Artistic Advisor at Portland Opera.

Geter’s rapidly growing and “invigoratingly fresh” (Opera Today) body of work includes chamber, vocal, orchestral, and full operatic works, with his compositions praised for their “skillful vocal writing” (Wall Street Journal). In the 2024/2025 season, the world premiere of Geter’s new major opera, Loving v. Virginia, concludes Virginia Opera’s 50th anniversary season. Based on the true story of Mildred and Richard Loving, the opera is co-commissioned by Virginia Opera and Richmond Symphony, co-produced by Virginia Opera and Minnesota Opera, and features a libretto by Jessica Murphy Moo, Denyce Graves as director, and Adam Turner conducting. Another new opera of Geter’s, Delta King’s Blues, commissioned by IN Series, will be workshopped in January 2025 and premiered later that year. His song, Amanirenas, commissioned by soprano Karen Slack for her African Queens art song program, tours at Washington Performing Arts, the Ravinia Festival, Aspen Music Festival, 92nd Street Y New York, the Nashville Symphony, and Friends of Chamber Music Denver. His newly commissioned song, Gentle lady, do not sing, is included on the Choral Scholars University College Dublin’s album, Music by James Joyce, Volume I (September 2024, Signum Classics).

As conductor this season, he leads Paul Moravec’s opera The Shining, based on Stephen King’s iconic novel, at Portland Opera, and Carmel Symphony Orchestra’s Opening Night Gala, America the Beautiful concert.

Future commissions include world premieres with the Richmond Symphony and Nathaniel Dett Chorale, plus a new operatic production at Portland Opera in 2026.

In the 2023/2024 season, Des Moines Metro Opera presented the full-length world premiere of Geter’s opera, American Apollo, starring Justin Austin, William Burden, and Mary Dunleavy, with a libretto by Lila Palmer and David Neely conducting. Opera Now proclaimed Geter’s orchestrations created “a kaleidoscopic ‘American Impressionism’, with borrowings from other genres of the time, creating a diverse palate to accommodate the vivid characters” and Opera Today stated the composer’s “sound palette and approach is very much his own distinct amalgamated voice”. Last season, Chicago Symphony Orchestra programmed Geter’s Annunciation on the concert Montgomery and the Blacknificent 7; Richmond Symphony premiered Sinfonia Americana; his song cycle COTTON saw its New York premiere at the 92nd Street Y, starring Denyce Graves and Justin Austin; Oregon Bach Festival presented his new Bach transcription after Prelude and Fugue No. 2 in C Minor from The Well-Tempered Clavier; and the Recording Inclusivity Initiative recorded his String Quartet No. 1 “Neo-Soul”.

In 2022, Geter had six premieres as a composer, including his large work, An African American Requiem, in partnership with Resonance Ensemble and the Oregon Symphony with subsequent performances at the Kennedy Center; I Said What I Said for Imani Winds, co-commissioned by Anima Mundi Productions, Chamber Music Northwest, and The Oregon Bach Festival; his one-act opera Holy Ground for Glimmerglass Opera; Elegy for the American Guild of Organists; The Bronze Legacy for Chicago Symphony Orchestra; and the chamber version of American Apollo for Des Moines Metro Opera.

Called “superb” by The News Tribune, DC Theater Arts praises his “commanding presence and voice full of bass-baritone gravitas”. Last season, Geter portrayed the role of abolitionist and historian William Still to great critical acclaim in Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Paul Moravec’s oratorio Sanctuary Road, presented by Virginia Opera, and based on the writings of Still, who is credited with helping nearly 800 enslaved African Americans escape to freedom. He also joined Auburn Symphony Orchestra in Ralph Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony and Rembrandt Chamber Musicians in The Wayfarer’s Melodies: A Musical Journey, singing the John Ireland Songs of a Wayfarer cycle.

Recent season highlights include Geter’s Metropolitan Opera debut in the Grammy award-winning production of Porgy and Bess as the Undertaker. He performed the title role of Quamino in the world premiere of Errollyn Wallen’s Quamino’s Map with Chicago Opera Theatre; as Angelotti in Tosca with the Portland and Eugene Operas; as Archibald Craven in The Secret Garden with Hawaii Opera Theatre; and as Sam in Reno Symphony’s Voices of a Nation: Trouble in Tahiti. In concert, Geter performed as the bass soloist in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Richmond Symphony and Fresno Philharmonic, Handel’s Messiah with North Carolina Symphony, and in the role of William Still in Sanctuary Road with the Oakland Symphony.

On television, Geter made his TV debut as John Sacks on NBC's Grimm and was seen in Netflix's Trinkets. Musical theater credits include Kevin Rosario in Lin Manuel-Miranda's In the Heights and Pontius Pilate in Jesus Christ Superstar.

Geter is an alumnus of the Austrian American Mozart Festival and the Aspen Opera Center, and was a semifinalist for the Irma Cooper Vocal Competition. He toured with the prestigious American Spiritual Ensemble, a group that helps promote preserving the American art form the spiritual.

He is the owner of DG Music, Sans Fear Publishing. Music in Context: An Examination of Western European Music Through a Sociopolitical Lens, the book he co-authored, is available on Amazon, or directly from the publisher, Kendall Hunt.

Last updated August 2024