Conrad Strasser

Conrad Strasser (1951 – 1995) was an opera conductor and music director of the After Dinner Opera Company. During his career, Strasser conducted over 56 New York City premieres of operas by American composers starting with a program of short operas with words by Gertrude Stein. For over 20 years, Strasser also served as music director at Unitarian Church of Staten Island and for more than 10 years was a teacher at the pre-college opera division at the Manhattan School of Music where he taught piano and voice and was a coach to many singers from the Metropolitan and New York City Operas. Conrad Strasser died of AIDS at the age of 44 at his home in Manhattan, New York.

In 1990, during Black History Month, he performed Troubled Island by William Grant Still with words by Langston Hughes at the Lincoln Center Library (now New York Public Library for the Performing Arts).