Laurann Gilley is a pianist, vocal coach, and conductor whose work spans some of the country’s leading opera companies and educational institutions. For over two decades, she has been on the vocal coaching faculty of The Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago. She has also performed frequently with the Lyric Opera Orchestra, and served as Music Supervisor for the company’s performances of Jason and the Argonauts. During her 15 seasons at Glimmerglass Opera, she coached several operas, including 3 world premieres. Other companies she has worked with include San Francisco Opera, Seattle Opera, San Diego Opera, Vancouver Opera, and the American Symphony Orchestra, with whom she has also recorded.

Gilley currently serves on the opera faculty at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, where she conducted The World Still Needs You, Boris Yeltsin!, and has been the assistant conductor for several operas, including La Bohème, Cosí fan tutte, Summer and Smoke, Little Women, and Time to Act. In addition, she served as Assistant Producer to Elaine Martone on the premiere recording of Time to Act, recorded at National Sawdust in New York City.

While on faculty at Roosevelt University, Gilley conducted Ned Rorem’s Bertha and Daron Hagen’s Broken Pieces, and served as Music Director and Assistant Conductor for the world premiere of Kyong Mee Choi’s Pale Courage. At Florentine Opera, she conducted Cosí fan tutte (adaptation), served as Assistant Conductor for Roméo et Juliette, and produced a world premiere collaboration with the alternative electronic band Immortal Girlfriend. Gilley also served as Assistant Conductor for Opera Festival of Chicago’s Il Corsaro, and for The Turn of the Screw at Northwestern University, where she was on faculty for over a decade. With Midwest Opera Theatre, she conducted Suor Angelica, The Impresario, and La Bohème (virtual.) In 2018, Gilley participated in The Hart Institute for Women Conductors.

An avid chamber musician, Gilley has collaborated on recitals at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, the Chicago Cultural Center, for the San Francisco Opera Schwabacher Series, and in other venues throughout the U.S. and Canada, joining forces with artists such as Will Liverman, J’nai Bridges, Amanda Majeski, Nicole Cabell, Alyson Cambridge, William Burden, and Mark Oswald.

Gilley holds degrees from The Eastman School of Music, The Manhattan School of Music, and Southern Methodist University.