Grant Preisser is a stage director, scenic designer, and artistic director whose work spans mainstage opera, world premieres, and the full arc of the opera-making process from first concept to opening night. As artistic director of Opera Orlando, he helped build a company committed to the full range of the operatic form — standard repertoire alongside contemporary American opera, site-specific work alongside fully staged mainstage productions — while simultaneously directing and designing across the country. His directing credits include UrbanArias, Opera in the Heights, Wichita Grand Opera, Opera Tampa, Pacific Opera Project, Lawrence Opera Theatre, Florida State Opera, and the Rochester and Helena Symphony Orchestras. He has directed the world premieres of The Last American Hammer and Shining Brow: Usonian Edition with UrbanArias, and Death of Ivan Ilych for both Thompson Street Opera Company and Opera Orlando. The Washington Post described his work as "dramatically taut" with "considerable depth and complexity." A visiting professor of Opera Workshop at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance, Preisser has taught concurrent undergraduate and graduate sections while simultaneously directing mainstage productions. He has presented masterclasses in aria preparation and character development at Millikin University and Lawrence Opera Theatre, and Preisser holds a bachelor of arts in music, a master of science in interior design, and has completed graduate coursework in opera production all at Florida State University.