John McKeever

John McKeever is currently the Director of Orchestral Activities at the University of Missouri in Columbia, MO. Highly sought after as an educator, Dr. McKeever has led clinics, honors ensembles, and masterclasses across the United States. In October of 2025, he was a guest teacher at the Universidad National de Música in Lima, Peru, where he taught conducting master classes and led rehearsals with the Symphony Orchestra. Dr. McKeever also maintains an active schedule as a professional musician. In 2025, he helped to co-found Light Opera Lab, a summer opera festival dedicated to the creation and performance of new comedic operatic works. He will be serving as the Music Director for the Light Opera Lab's inaugural season in the summer of 2026. In the fall of 2026, Dr. McKeever will take over as the Music Director for the Columbia Civic Orchestra in Columbia, MO.

 

In 2022/23 Dr. McKeever was the Assistant Conductor for the UNC School of the Art's Symphony Orchestra. Additionally, Dr. McKeever also worked as the Assistant Conductor for Piedmont Opera, where he conducted their 2023 production of Donizetti's Don Pasquale. Dr. McKeever earned a Doctor of Musical Arts in Orchestral Conducting at the University of Colorado Boulder, graduating in 2021.  As a graduate teaching assistant, he served as the director of the CU Boulder Campus Orchestra.  He also served as an Assistant and Cover Conductor for the Boulder Philharmonic.

 

Born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska, Dr. McKeever began his studies on the piano.  While continuing on the piano, he switched his focus to the double bass in elementary school.  He earned a Bachelor of Music in Double Bass Performance at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, where he studied with Paul Sharpe.  While a student at UNCSA, Dr. McKeever developed an interest in conducting and began to work as an assistant conductor for the A.J. Fletcher Opera Institute, Piedmont Opera, and several UNCSA musicals.  Dr. McKeever continued his studies at UNCSA, earning a Master of Music in Orchestral Conducting in 2015. 

 

From 2012-2018, Dr. McKeever served as the Assistant Conductor for Piedmont Opera in Winston-Salem, NC.  In 2018, he made his conducting debut with the company in Piedmont Opera’s production of The Pirates of Penzance.  In 2016, Dr. McKeever shadowed the American Ballet Theatre’s spring season at the Metropolitan Opera at the invitation of the company’s principal conductor, Charles Barker.  Dr. McKeever’s teachers include James Allbritten, David Amado, Charles Barker, Michael Jinbo, Christopher James Lees, Gary Lewis, Jonathan Schiffman, and Kevin Stites.