Biography

Khori Dastoor, General Director and CEO of Houston Grand Opera since 2021, is a passionate believer in great art and culture, its power to transform society, and the importance of making it accessible to every member of Houston’s diverse international community. Major achievements during her tenure include the season-opening 2023 world premiere of Jake Heggie, Gene Scheer, and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar’s internationally acclaimed world-premiere opera Intelligence; HGO’s 2022 original production of The Wreckers, a lost masterpiece by Dame Ethel Smyth that had never been staged by a major America opera company; and the 2021 world premiere of Joel Thompson’s The Snowy Day, the first mainstage opera to be livestreamed by HGO in its history. In 2023, Dastoor announced that HGO had secured the largest gift in HGO history—a $22 million commitment from Sarah and Ernest Butler. Dastoor joined HGO from Opera San José, where she served as General Director during a tenure marked by rapid growth of the company’s audience and patron base, unprecedented financial stability, and innovations including a new digital media studio. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for Opera America, where she is the Co-Chair of the Learning and Leadership Council and a founding member and mentor for the Mentorship Program for Opera Leaders of Color, as well as the Advisory Board of the Asian Opera Alliance. She assists with industry efforts to identify young talent as a judge for the Richard Tucker Awards and the Metropolitan Opera’s Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition. Dastoor is a former lyric soprano who performed internationally. She began her career in arts administration as a member of foundation leadership at the Packard Humanities Institute. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the New England Conservatory of Music and a master’s degree from UCLA. She and her husband are the proud parents of two young daughters.