As Music Director and Conductor for Center Stage Opera, Maestro Brian Onderdonk is extremely pleased to have had the opportunity to develop the organization into one of the premiere regional opera houses in the Los Angeles area. He has led the company in almost 20 opera productions over the course of his tenure, including performances of Tosca, Carmen, two productions of Lucia di Lammermoor, L'Elisir d'Amore, Cosi Fan Tutte, Le Nozze di Figaro, two productions of La Traviata, Rigoletto, Romeo et Juliette, Faust, and several orchestral and choral concerts with the company's resident orchestra.

He is currently a doctoral candidate at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he is Assistant Conductor and Associate Instructor for the IU Opera Theatre and works with world-renowned conductors David Effron and Atlanta Opera Music Director Arthur Fagen. Mr. Onderdonk's first operatic engagement occurred while he was a student at California State University Northridge, when he was asked to step in for the ailing Music Director of the CSUN Opera Theater and conduct a live performance of Mozart's Cosí Fan Tutte with only a few hours' notice. Since then, he guest conducted performances with the CSUN Opera, including L'Elisir d'Amore, Albert Herring, Die Fledermaus, and Carousel.

In 2004, he was a guest conductor for performances of Eugene Onegin and Die Zauberflöte with the Burgas Opera and Philharmonic Society in Bulgaria and in 2007 was invited to step in as guest Music Director of the UCSB Symphony Orchestra to conduct the ensemble's final concert of the academic year.

He has also been a participant at national and international orchestral conducting workshops and seminars, and for five years he held the Conducting Fellowship position with the nationally acclaimed American Youth Symphony led by Los Angeles Philharmonic Concertmaster Alexander Treger.