Baroque on Beaver: Opera Night Finale

About Peter Amster

Peter Amster has been directing and choreographing theatre and opera for 50 years. In Chicago, where he lived for 40 years, he directed and choreographed at the Goodman Theater, Court, Northlight, Apple Tree, Route 66, Live Bait, the Lyric Opera, Chicago Opera Theatre, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and Steppenwolf. Elsewhere in the United States, he directed at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Utah Shakespeare Festival, American Players Theatre, Peninsula Players, Weston Playhouse, Indiana Repertory Theatre, the Maltz Jupiter Theatre, Cleveland Play House, Syracuse Stage and Laguna Playhouse. He now resides in Sarasota, where he is a regular guest director and Artistic Associate at the Asolo Repertory Theatre. Peter taught Theatre, Opera and Performance Studies at Northwestern University, Louisiana State University, California Institute of the Arts, Columbia College and Roosevelt University, where he was Director of the Opera for ten years.

About Nathan Bieber

Combining the influences of classical music, film scores, progressive metal, electronic music, classic rock, and jazz, Nathan Bieber is a versatile composer who is comfortable in many styles. He composed his first melodies at age 6, and has spent his entire life developing his unique musical voice through a combination of improvisation and score study. The orchestra, strings, synthesizers, and other cutting edge sounds are all characteristic of his music.

Outside of scoring for media, Bieber works actively as a concert composer and as an arranger. Some of his upcoming concert commissions include works for mixed trio and string ensemble which will be premiered and performed across the United States. As an arranger of pop and traditional music, his arrangements have been performed by professional orchestras in the United States and abroad – both in the concert hall and beyond.

Bieber completed his master’s degree in Scoring for Film, Television, and Video Games at the Berklee College of Music, Valencia Campus, graduating with the highest honors.

About Robert Nordling

Robert Nordling’s conducting has been characterized as “emphatic”, “dramatic”, and “vivid” with a “fresh and airy quality and a certain elegance” (San Francisco Chronicle). Robert serves as the Music Director of the Baroque on Beaver Island Music Festival (Northern Michigan) the Shoreline Music Society (Michigan) and as Music Director Emeritus of the Bandung Philharmonic Orchestra (Indonesia). Nordling’s commitment to new music is evidenced by his commissioning and premiering over 20 new works since 2016.

A sought-out clinician and educator, Robert performs orchestra clinics, music educational workshops and master classes in schools in the USA and abroad. He led the Bandung Philharmonic Conducting Fellows program which trains young Indonesian conductors in Master Classes and performance from 2015 – 2023. He has also served on the music faculty of the Calvin University Music Department and Trinity International University where he conducted the orchestras and taught in the areas of music history, music appreciation and conducting.

 A native of New Jersey, Robert began his early studies on violin with Stephen Clapp and Paul Zukovsky. Following his undergraduate study at the Wheaton College Conservatory of Music, he was awarded conducting fellowships to the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute where he worked with Leonard Bernstein, Michael Tilson Thomas, Herbert Blomstedt and Erich Leinsdorf. He also received conducting fellowships from the Oregon Bach Festival to work with Helmuth Rilling and the Cedardell Opera Festival to work with Boris Goldovsky.

About the Beaver Island Performing Arts Alliance

Each summer from the last weekend of July through the first weekend of August, the Baroque on Beaver Festival presents world-class orchestral, chamber, and vocal performances on the most remote inhabited island of the Great Lakes. In 2026, the festival celebrates 25 years of bringing classical music to Beaver Island. Baroque on Beaver is the signature event of the Beaver Island Performing Arts Alliance (BIPAA).