Conductor Matthew Straw is rapidly establishing himself across the international opera and symphonic stages. Mentored by Semyon Bychkov, Straw serves as his assistant and preparatory conductor over upcoming seasons. In the 2026/27 season, Straw returns to Opéra national du Rhin conducting the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg in a Richard Wagner Gala with Michael Spyres, and makes debuts with the Orchestre de l’Opéra de Limoges and other orchestras to be announced shortly.

Straw enjoys a strong connection to Strasbourg following a two-year tenure as Assistant Conductor at Opéra national du Rhin, where he conducted Laurent Pelly’s production of Gypsy starring Natalie Dessay and performances of Lotte de Beer’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann on tour in Riems. Previous engagements include Assistant Conductor of the Utah Symphony (leading over 80 performances), as well as work at Opéra-Comique and the Salzburg Festival. He has studied in masterclasses at the Bayreuth Festival, New World Symphony, Aspen Music Festival, and Järvi Academy under conductors including Christian Thielemann, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Paavo Järvi, and Michael Tilson Thomas.

A primary artistic collaborator of tenor Michael Spyres, Straw co-founded Wagner For All alongside Spyres. The open-access initiative makes Wagner’s masterworks financially and logistically accessible to opera companies and audiences worldwide. Centered on Straw’s own reduced-length and orchestration versions of Der Ring des Nibelungen and Tristan und Isolde, the platform provides free access to his scores and suites, recordings, podcasts with leading Wagnerians, and open-source video projection designs for stage productions. His custom suite reductions written for Spyres—including the Siegmund Suite and Wagner’s Lovers Suite—receive their world premieres this season with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg.

Growing up in a musical family, Straw brings a rare interdisciplinary perspective as a conductor, singer, cellist, pianist, composer, and ballet dancer. He studied at Oberlin College and Conservatory and the MDW University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna under Mark Stringer, Robert Spano, Neil Varon, and Stanislav Ioudenitch. He is a five-time recipient of the Solti Foundation US Career Assistance Award, a National YoungArts Award winner, and First Prize winner of the Schmidt Competition.