Founder & General Director
Maestro Bill Doherty
Concert pianist, conductor, composer, singer, teacher, coach, and a lifelong champion for developing vocal artists.
Maestro Bill Doherty has been performing as a concert pianist since the age of four and continues to delight audiences around the world. His musical studies included intensive training in piano, conducting, composition, and voice with teachers connected to Tanglewood, Manhattan School of Music, Juilliard, Tri-Cities Opera, the Metropolitan Opera, and the Vienna State Opera. As an operatic tenor, he sang with Mohawk Valley Opera and Tri-Cities Opera and was mentored by legendary soprano Licia Albanese.
As a composer, conductor, pianist, and singer, Mr. Doherty has performed in performance halls and cathedrals including the Vatican, Lincoln Center, St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York, the Prudential Center in Boston, Villa Faccanoni on Lake Iseo, and venues throughout Italy and Asia. In 2012 he conducted members of CFLO and the St. Timothy Choir in a Mass of Thanksgiving at the Vatican for Pope Benedict XVI and in concerts around Rome.
His Requiem received its world premiere in Jerusalem in 2014 under the auspices of the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music and was presented in Rome in 2016, when he and his choir also sang for the Closing of the Holy Doors at the Vatican for Pope Francis. In August 2022 he conducted the world premiere of Requiem for World Peace at the Salzburg Festival in Austria.
Mr. Doherty has conducted and accompanied opera for more than 35 years, collaborating with artists including Licia Albanese, Galina Vishnevskaya, Deborah Voigt, Susan Neves, and Grammy Award-winning soprano Molly Fillmore. His student Fernando Varela was a finalist on America's Got Talent.
He operates teaching studios in Florida and New York City. His students have performed principal roles with opera companies around the world, on and off Broadway, and have won national and international vocal competitions. He has conducted master classes at universities and conservatories in the United States, France, Italy, and beyond, and his interviews and performances have appeared on PBS, CBS, NBC, and the Late Show with David Letterman.
Mr. Doherty has adjudicated the Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation International Vocal Competition, the Gerda Lissner International Opera Competition, and the Giulio Gari International Vocal Competition. He is Founder and General Director of Central Florida Lyric Opera and Director of Music at St. Timothy's Catholic Church in The Villages.