Kelsie Furst is the Executive and Artistic Director of Loveland Opera Theatre, a regional opera company serving Northern Colorado. She brings over 30 years of performance experience, including more than a decade of operatic and musical theater work with Loveland Opera Theatre and Opera Fort Collins.

An accomplished performer, Furst has appeared with a variety of chamber ensembles premiering new works and has performed with Loveland Opera Theatre, Opera Fort Collins, Fort Collins Symphony, the Denver Young Artist Orchestra, and the Centennial Children’s Chorus. Her broad musical background informs her collaborative and community-centered approach to artistic leadership.

Deeply passionate about arts education, Furst’s work spans early arts engagement, experiential learning, and mentorship for emerging creative professionals.

Through Loveland Opera Theatre’s Dahlen Educational Outreach Programming, she has played a key role in both performing in and producing educational programming that brings opera and musical storytelling directly to young audiences through school tours and immersive, in-theatre experiences. Her commitment to arts education reflects a belief in the transformative power of music and storytelling not only as a means of inspiring young artists, but of fostering curiosity, imagination, and a lifelong connection to the arts. Through this work, she is dedicated to cultivating the next generation of performers, audiences, and arts advocates.

Furst also works with students in Front Range Community College’s Business for Creative Industries (BCI) Practicum and Internship course, providing opportunities for students to gain hands-on experience within a working arts organization. Through their work with Loveland Opera Theatre, students are able to apply classroom learning to the realities of creative production, arts administration, marketing, design, project management, and community engagement while contributing to active professional projects.

Central to Furst’s approach is the belief that arts education should extend beyond artistic training alone. Emerging artists and creative professionals also benefit from opportunities to understand the practical structures that allow creative work to exist: collaboration, entrepreneurship, communication, production, leadership, and the business of building a sustainable life in the arts.

Whether introducing a child to opera for the first time or helping a college student translate creative training into professional experience, Furst approaches arts education as an investment in the future of the creative ecosystem giving the next generation opportunities not simply to experience the arts, but to imagine themselves as part of them.

When she’s not running an opera company or seeking out performance opportunities, she enjoys running a bustling household with her husband Edward, and has 4 children ages four to eleven. The Furst’s love travel, the outdoors, attending performances, home improvement projects, and being the eccentric neighbors who always have classical music blasting through their windows.

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