Andrew Litton is Music Director of the New York City Ballet. He is also Conductor Laureate of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and was previously Music Director Laureate of Norway’s Bergen Philharmonic. Under his leadership the Bergen Philharmonic gained international recognition through extensive recording and touring, making debuts at the BBC Proms, at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and appearances at Vienna’s Musikverein, Berlin’s Philharmonie, and New York’s Carnegie Hall. For his work with the Bergen Philharmonic, Norway’s King Harald V knighted him with the Norwegian Royal Order of Merit.

Andrew was Principal Conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra from 1988-1994. During this time, he led the orchestra on their first American tour and produced 14 recordings, including the Grammy-winning Belshazzar’s Feast. As Music Director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra from 1994-2006, he hired over one third of the players, led the orchestra on three major European tours, appeared four times at Carnegie Hall, created a children’s television series broadcast nationally and in widespread use in school curricula, produced 28 recordings, and helped raise the orchestra’s endowment from $19 million to $100 million. He regularly guest conducts leading orchestras and opera companies around the globe and adds to his discography of over 140 recordings, which have garnered America’s Grammy Award, France’s Diapason d’Or and other honours.

In addition to conducting over fifty performances at the New York City Ballet, Andrew returns regularly to the Singapore Symphony Orchestra (where he is a former Principal Guest Conductor) Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, and guest conducts with a wide range of international orchestras - recent and forthcoming highlights including the Vancouver Symphony, South Netherlands Philharmonic, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano, BBC Symphony Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie- Orchester Berlin, Dallas Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfonica de Galicia, and the Royal Swedish Orchestra.

An avid opera conductor with a keen theatrical sense, Andrew has led major opera companies throughout the world, including the Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera Covent Garden, Australian Opera and Deutsche Oper Berlin. In Norway, he was key to founding the Bergen National Opera, where he led numerous critically acclaimed performances. He often conducts semi-staged opera programmes with symphony orchestras. During his 14-year tenure as Artistic Director of the Minnesota Orchestra Sommerfest, he concluded the festival with sold-out performances of Salomé, Der Rosenkavalier, Madama Butterfly, La Bohème, Tosca, Rigoletto, La Traviata and others. He conducted the BBC National Orchestra of Wales at the 2021 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition.

Andrew’s work with New York City Ballet has earned praise from critics, dancers, and audiences, bringing new prominence to the Ballet’s orchestra. He began his ballet work while still a Juilliard student, performing as on-stage pianist for Rudolf Nureyev, Natalia Makarova, and Cynthia Gregory. In December 2023 Andrew made his debut with the Royal Ballet, Covent Garden and in the 2024-25 season he will make his debut with the Bayerisches Staatsballett, Munich.

An accomplished pianist, Andrew often performs as piano soloist, conducting from the keyboard, most recently Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and Beethoven’s Triple Concerto in Singapore. An acknowledged expert on George Gershwin, he has performed and recorded Gershwin widely as both pianist and conductor and serves as Advisor to the University of Michigan Gershwin Archives. After leading the Covent Garden debut of Porgy and Bess, Andrew arranged his own concert suite of the work, which is now performed around the world. In 2014 he released his first solo piano album, A Tribute to Oscar Peterson, a testimony to his passion for jazz, particularly the music of that great pianist.

Andrew’s Dallas Symphony Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto recordings with Stephen Hough, widely hailed as the best since the composer’s own, won the Classical Brits/BBC Critics Award. He also received a Grammy nomination for his recording of Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd with the New York Philharmonic and Patti Lupone.

Born in New York City, Andrew graduated from the Fieldston School and earned both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from The Juilliard School in Piano and Conducting. He served as assistant conductor at La Scala and at the National Symphony under Rostropovich. His many honours in addition to Norway’s Order of Merit include Yale’s Sanford Medal, the Elgar Society Medal, and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Bournemouth.

Updated September 2024

The Grant Park Orchestra was formed in 1944 when the Chicago Park District assembled a single resident orchestra under the direction of Principal Conductor Nikolai Malko to perform at the Grant Park Music Festival (which began in 1935 and featured a series of visiting orchestras). Since then, other prestigious conductors have held the position, including Irwin Hoffman, Leonard Slatkin, David Zinman, Zdnek Macal and Hugh Wolff. In 2000, Carlos Kalmar was named the Festival’s Principal Conductor.

Today, the Grant Park Orchestra draws its musicians from different orchestras and musical institutions throughout the United States. Each summer, all of the orchestra members gather in Millennium Park for a ten-week long season consisting of intensive rehearsals and performances. During the year, the musicians can be found across the country performing with major orchestras, teaching at numerous universities and appearing frequently in concert stages across the country. Some organizations represented by Grant Park Orchestra musicians include the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Metropolitan Opera, the Buffalo, Colorado, Jacksonville, Kansas City, Milwaukee, New Mexico, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Richmond, San Antonio, Seattle, and Utah Symphonies. The Grant Park Orchestra was nominated for a Grammy award for its recording entitled Robert Kurka: Symphonic Works.

(23 November 1876 – 15 November 1946) Manuel de Falla is one of Spain's most important composers. His most famous works include The Three-Cornered Hat, Nights in the Gardens of Spain and El amor brujo.

Currently serving as Composer-in-Residence with the storied Philadelphia Orchestra and included in the Washington Post's list of the 35 most significant women composers in history (August, 2017), identity has always been at the center of composer/pianist Gabriela Lena Frank's music. Born in Berkeley, California (September, 1972), to a mother of mixed Peruvian/Chinese ancestry and a father of Lithuanian/Jewish descent, Gabriela explores her multicultural heritage through her compositions. Inspired by the works of Bela Bartók and Alberto Ginastera, Gabriela has traveled extensively throughout South America in creative exploration. Her music often reflects not only her own personal experience as a multi-racial Latina, but also refract her studies of Latin American cultures, incorporating poetry, mythology, and native musical styles into a western classical framework that is uniquely her own.

Moreover, she writes, "There's usually a story line behind my music; a scenario or character." While the enjoyment of her works can be obtained solely from her music, the composer's program notes enhance the listener's experience, for they describe how a piano part mimics a marimba or pan-pipes, or how a movement is based on a particular type of folk song, where the singer is mockingly crying. Even a brief glance at her titles evokes specific imagery: Leyendas (Legends): An Andean Walkabout; La Llorona (The Crying Woman): Tone Poem for Viola and Orchestra; and Concertino Cusqueño (Concertino in the Cusco style). Gabriela's compositions also reflect her virtuosity as a pianist — when not composing, she is a sought-after performer, specializing in contemporary repertoire.

In 2020, Gabriela was a recipient of the prestigious 25th anniversary Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanity category with an unrestricted cash prize of $250,000, a meaningful portion of which was donated by Gabriela to the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music. The award recognized Gabriela for breaking gender, disability, and cultural barriers in the classical music industry, and for her work as an activist on behalf of emerging composers of all demographics and aesthetics.

Winner of a Latin Grammy and nominated for Grammys as both composer and pianist, Gabriela also holds a Guggenheim Fellowship and a USA Artist Fellowship given each year to fifty of the country’s finest artists. Her work has been described as “crafted with unself-conscious mastery” (Washington Post), “brilliantly effective” (New York Times), “a knockout” (Chicago Tribune) and “glorious” (Los Angeles Times).  Gabriela is regularly commissioned by luminaries such as cellist Yo Yo Ma, soprano Dawn Upshaw, the King’s Singers, the Cuarteto Latinoamericano with guitarist Manuel Barrueco, Brooklyn Rider, and conductors Marin Alsop and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. She has also received orchestral commissions and performances from leading American orchestras including the Chicago Symphony, the Boston Symphony, the Atlanta Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony. Before her current residency with the Philadelphia Orchestra for which she will compose the 45-minute Chronicles of the Picaflor (Hummingbird), in 2017 she completed her four-year tenure as composer-in-residence with the Detroit Symphony under maestro Leonard Slatkin, composing Walkabout: Concerto for Orchestra, as well as a second residency with the Houston Symphony under Andrés Orozco-Estrada for whom she composed the Conquest Requiem, a large-scale choral/orchestral work in Spanish, Latin, and Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. Gabriela’s most recent premieres have been Apu: Tone Poem for Orchestra commissioned by Carnegie Hall and premiered by the National Youth Orchestra of the United States under the baton of conductor Marin Alsop; and Suite Mestiza, a large-scale work for solo violin premiered by Movses Pogossian. In the season of 2022-23, San Diego Opera will premiere Gabriela’s first opera, The Last Dream of Frida, utilizing words by her frequent collaborator Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Nilo Cruz. In the 2018-19 school year, Gabriela also became visiting Artist-in-Residence at the Blair School of Music with Vanderbilt University, and currently serves as Composer-in-Residence at the Caines School of Music at Utah State University through 2024, adding to her long list of residencies at universities and conservatories through the US.

Gabriela is the subject of several scholarly books including the W.W. Norton Anthology: The Musics of Latin America; Women of Influence in Contemporary Music: Nine American Composers (Scarecrow Press); and In her Own Words (University of Illinois Press). She is also the subject of several PBS documentaries including “Compadre Huashayo” regarding her work in Ecuador composing for the Orquestra de Instrumentos Andinos comprised of native highland instruments; and Música Mestiza, regarding a workshop she led at the University of Michigan composing for a virtuoso septet of a classical string quartet plus a trio of Andean panpipe players. Músic Mestiza, created by filmmaker Aric Hartvig, received an Emmy Nomination for best Documentary Feature in 2015.  

Civic outreach is an essential part of Gabriela’s work. She has volunteered extensively in hospitals and prisons, with her current focus on developing the music school program at Anderson Valley High School, a rural public school of modest means with a large Latino population in Boonville, CA.

Gabriela is also a climate activist, co-authoring a regular column on climate action within the music industry for Chamber Music America Magazine and creating a Climate Commitment for GLFCAM.

In 2017, Gabriela founded the award-winning Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music whose history and mission can be found here.

Gabriela attended Rice University in Houston, Texas, where she earned a B.A. (1994) and M.A. (1996). She studied composition with Sam Jones, and piano with Jeanne Kierman Fischer. At the University of Michigan, where she received a D.M.A. in composition in 2001, Gabriela studied with William Albright, William Bolcom, Leslie Bassett, and Michael Daugherty, and piano with Logan Skelton. She currently resides in Boonville, a small rural town in the Anderson Valley, with her husband Jeremy on their mountain farm, has a second home in her native Berkeley in the San Francisco Bay Area, and has traveled extensively in Andean South America.  

Gabriela is a member of G. Schirmer’s prestigious roster of artists, exclusively managed and published.

George Gershwin, born in Brooklyn, New York on September 26, 1898, was the second son of Russian immigrants. As a boy, George was anything but studious, and it came as a wonderful surprise to his family that he had secretly been learning to play the piano. In 1914, Gershwin left high school to work as a Tin Pan Alley song plugger and within three years, “When You Want ‘Em, You Can’t Get ‘Em; When You Have ‘Em, You Don’t Want ‘Em,” was published. Though this initial effort created little interest, “Swanee” (lyrics by Irving Caesar) — turned into a smash hit by Al Jolson in 1919 — brought Gershwin his first real fame.

In 1924, when George teamed up with his older brother Ira, “the Gershwins” became the dominant Broadway songwriters, creating infectious rhythm numbers and poignant ballads, fashioning the words to fit the melodies with a “glove-like” fidelity. This extraordinary combination created a succession of musical comedies, including LADY, BE GOOD! (1924), OH, KAY! (1926), FUNNY FACE (1927), STRIKE UP THE BAND (1927 and 1930), GIRL CRAZY (1930), and OF THEE I SING (1931), the first musical comedy to win a Pulitzer Prize. Over the years, Gershwin songs have also been used in numerous films, including SHALL WE DANCE (1937), A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS (1937), and AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951). Later years produced the award-winning “new” stage musicals MY ONE AND ONLY (1983) and CRAZY FOR YOU (1992), which ran for four years on Broadway.

Early Days

Starting with his early days as a song composer, Gershwin had ambitions to compose serious music. Asked by Paul Whiteman to write an original work for a concert of modern music to be presented at Aeolian Hall in New York on February 12, 1924, George, who was hard at work on a musical comedy, SWEET LITTLE DEVIL, barely completed his composition in time. Commencing with the first low trill of the solo clarinet and its spine-tingling run up the scale, RHAPSODY IN BLUE caught the public’s fancy and opened a new era in American music. In 1925, conductor Walter Damrosch commissioned Gershwin to compose a piano concerto for the New York Symphony Society. Many feel that the CONCERTO IN F is Gershwin’s finest orchestral work. Others opt for his AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1928) or his SECOND RHAPSODY for piano and orchestra, which he introduced with himself as pianist with the Boston Symphony under Serge Koussevitzsky in 1932. 

In 1926 Gershwin read PORGY, DuBose Heyward’s novel of the South Carolina Gullah culture, and immediately recognized it as a perfect vehicle for a “folk opera” using blues and jazz idioms. PORGY AND BESS (co-written with Heyward and Ira) was Gershwin’s most ambitious undertaking, integrating unforgettable songs with dramatic incident. PORGY AND BESS previewed in Boston on September 30, 1935 and opened its Broadway run on October 10. The opera had major revivals in 1942, 1952, 1976, and 1983 and has toured the world. It was made into a major motion picture by Samuel Goldwyn in 1959, while Trevor Nunn’s landmark Glyndebourne Opera production was taped for television in 1993.

George's Career

George Gershwin was at the height of his career in 1937. His symphonic works and three PRELUDES for piano were becoming part of the standard repertoire for concerts and recitals, and his show songs had brought him increasing fame and fortune. It was in Hollywood, while working on the score of THE GOLDWYN FOLLIES, that George Gershwin died of a brain tumor; he was not quite 39 years old. Countless people throughout the world, who knew Gershwin only through his work, were stunned by the news as if they had suffered a personal loss. Some years later, the writer John O’Hara summed up their feelings: “George Gershwin died July 11, 1937, but I don’t have to believe it if I don’t want to.”

Gershwin’s works are performed today with greater frequency than they were during his brief lifetime. His songs and concert pieces continue to fill the pages of discographies and orchestra calendars. The Trustees of Columbia University recognized Gershwin’s influence — and made up for his not receiving a Pulitzer for OF THEE I SING in 1932 — when they awarded him a special posthumous Pulitzer Prize in 1998, the centennial of his birth.

source: gershwin.com