Both companies are residents of the Music Center: Los Angeles Opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and the Master Chorale across the street at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Gershon is no stranger to opera — or indeed to Los Angeles Opera, where he was Assistant Conductor/Principal Pianist from 1988 to 1994; he then served as assistant conductor at the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1994 to 1997. He has held similar positions at the Salzburg Festival, the Berlin Staatsoper and the Aix-en-Provence Festival, working with conductors Esa-Pekka Salonen, Daniel Barenboim and Claudio Abbado, respectively. He has appeared as guest conductor with, among others, Houston Grand Opera, Minnesota Opera, Royal Swedish Opera, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and Gustav Mahler Chamber Orchestra; earlier this month he conducted Ricky Ian Gordon's new work The Grapes of Wrath at Utah Opera.

His most recent recording with the Los Angeles Master Chorale, of Steve Reich's Daniel Variations, will be released on the Nonesuch label later this year.