Daniel Grambow is an arts administrator, producer, director, singer, and teaching artist with over fifteen years of experience synthesizing opera, history, and innovation in his work across the country. Leadership highlights include serving as Managing Director for Chautauqua Opera Company in Western New York, Founder and Executive Director of the Floating Opera Company in Chicago, Illinois, and one of the leaders in Chicago Opera Theater’s education department. He directed and performed in numerous productions during his career, most memorably in the operas of Giacomo Puccini, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Gaetano Donizetti, and Engelbert Humperdinck leading him to work with Cedar Rapids Opera Theater, Opera in the Ozarks, Ravinia Music Festival, Tuscia Opera Festival, and Salzburg Music Festival. His work at the Chautauqua Institution has been crucial in the development of the Opera Company’s 90th anniversary season, Chautauqua’s newest streaming platform CHQ Assembly, and in 2021, the operation of Chautauqua’s new outdoor Performance Pavilion.

The founder of Floating Opera Company, Daniel directed and produced 27 operatic productions throughout the Midwest. Examples of his work include War & Peace, an original composite opera that commemorated the centenary of World War I, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, a site-specific production at Bohemian National Cemetery, John Bilotta’s Quantum Mechanic reimagined inside of an industrial teaching kitchen, and Mozart’s Così fan tutte inspired by the “Super Mario” universe and performed in Bridgeport Art Center’s warehouse loading dock.

As a performer Daniel is at home on both the operatic and concert stages. His performing credits include Peter (Hänsel und Gretel), Marcello (La Bohème), Guglielmo (Così fan tutte), Malatesta (Don Pasquale), Papageno (The Magic Flute), and Geronimo (Il matrimonio segreto). He has performed in the Game of Thrones Live Concert Experience at the United Center and the All-State Arena and in the Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy concert at Symphony Center in Chicago. He has collaborated with organizations including Ravinia Music Festival, Chicago Children’s Choir, Tuscia Opera Festival, Pittsburgh Festival Opera, Chicago Opera Theater, Vox 3 Collective, Candid Concert Opera, Main Street Opera, Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company, American Chamber Opera, Verismo Opera, Chicago Fringe Opera, Chicago Summer Opera, Chicago Temple, Music at Unity Temple, and Opera Ouvert. He was a finalist in the Seven Stars Project in Los Angeles, CA and received the Marie Prudie Brown Emerging Young Artist Award from Opera in the Ozarks at Inspiration Point in Eureka Springs, AR.

A native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Grambow holds a Bachelor of Music from the University of Miami, a Master of Music from the Cleveland Institute of Music, and an Master of Science in Leadership for Creative Enterprises from Northwestern University. He is a proud supporter of entrepreneurship in the creative industries and was an active member of Northwestern’s “Garage” accelerator program.