John Fisher

Master Vocal Coach

John Fisher is a Scottish conductor, opera manager, vocal coach and record producer.
He is a graduate of the University of Glasgow, the Royal Academy of Music and the London Opera Centre. In the early 70’s he was on the music staff of both La Monnaie in Brussels and the Netherlands Opera in Amsterdam.
From 1977 he joined the staff of Teatro all a Scala, Milan, becoming head of music staff in 1979. He served there as Artistic administrator from 1981-1987. He collaborated closely with Claudio Abbado, and regularly with, among others, Carlos Kleiber, Wolfgang Sawallisch and Georges Pretre.
He was also music administrator of the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro from 1983-1988. Fisher collaborated closely with Jean Pierre Ponnelle on several opera films for Unitel films.

In 1989 he was appointed Artistic Director of Teatro la Fenice, remaining in that post until 1994, when he joined Deutsche Grammophon as Executive producer and Director of Opera and Vocal Productions.
In 1997 he was appointed Director of Music Administration at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, remaining in that position until becoming General Director of Welsh National Opera in 2006. He later returned to the Met to help musically prepare the new production of Wagner’s Ring, and subsequently became an Assistant General Manager there in 2015.

Fisher served as jury chairman of BBC Cardiff Singer of the World in 2007, 2009 and 2011, as well as being a member of the jury for the 15th Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow and St Petersburg in 2015.
In 2014 he conducted the Verdi Requiem in Lithuania to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the liquidation of the Jewish ghetto in Kaunas.

In 2013, John Fisher was invested with an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Welsh College of Music.