David Steinau, tenor

David Steinau is chair of the Department of Music at Susquehanna University, where he also teaches voice and directs the opera studio. He has staged the department’s productions of Puccini’s Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi, Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, and Weill’s Street Scene, as well as two rare operas from the 1940s: Hans Krasa’s Brundibar and Viktor Ullmann’s The Emperor of Atlantis. He also has conducted Susquehanna productions of two Sondheim musicals, Into the Woods and Passion, and Weill’s Threepenny Opera. As a singer, he has appeared in operas ranging from Mozart to Britten and in oratorios of Handel, Haydn, and Bach. Originally from Illinois, he holds degrees from Northwestern University, the New England Conservatory of Music, and the University of Illinois. His particular interest in the songs of the 20th-century German composer Hanns Eisler and poet Bertolt Brecht has taken him to national and international conferences, where he has presented his studies of Eisler’s songs, and to concert stages where he has organized and appeared in performances of Eisler’s music.