ANDREW CRUST
ANDREW CRUST is the newly-appointed Music Director of the Lima Symphony, the 5th Music Director in the organization's history, and has developed a versatile international career as a conductor of orchestral, opera, ballet and pops programs.
Crust also serves as the Associate Conductor of the Vancouver Symphony in Canada, where he conducts a large number of subscription, pops, educational and contemporary concerts each season.
In the current and upcoming seasons Crust will debut with the Vermont and Bozeman Symphonies as a Music Director finalist, and with the San Diego Symphony and Calgary Philharmonic and Arkansas Symphony as a guest conductor. Other recent engagements include performances with the Winnipeg Symphony, Memphis Symphony, Hartford Symphony, and l’Orchestre de la Francophonie in Québec.
Crust won a Solti Foundation US Career Assistance Award in 2020, and in 2017 was awarded First Prize at the Accademia Chigiana by Daniele Gatti, receiving a scholarship and an invitation to guest conduct the Orchestra di Sanremo in Italy. He was a semi-finalist for the Nestlé/Salzburg Festival’s Young Conductors
Music Director
Award competition, and was selected by members of the Vienna Philharmonic as a winner of the Ansbacher Fellowship, with full access to all rehearsals and performances of the Salzburg Festival.
Crust won a Solti Foundation US Career Assistance Award in 2020, and in 2017 was awarded First Prize at the Accademia Chigiana by Daniele Gatti, receiving a scholarship and an invitation to guest conduct the Orchestra di Sanremo in Italy. He was a semi-finalist for the Nestlé/Salzburg Festival’s Young Conductors Award competition, and was selected by members of the Vienna Philharmonic as a winner of the Ansbacher Fellowship, with full access to all rehearsals and performances of the Salzburg Festival.
Crust is equally at ease in the pit, having conducted ballet with Ballet Memphis and the New Ballet Ensemble, and opera with Opera McGill, College Light Opera Company, Boulder Opera Company, and others. As a Pops conductor, Andrew has collaborated with such artists as Rufus Wainwright, Michael Bolton, Cirque de la Symphonie, the United States Jazz Ambassadors and many others. Andrew has also established himself as a conductor of films with orchestra.
Crust served as Assistant Conductor of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra from 2017-2019 where he conducted around forty concerts each season. He stepped in last minute for a successful subscription performance featuring Bernstein’s Serenade with violinist Charles Yang. Crust also served as Conductor of the Memphis Youth Symphony Program. As the Assistant Conductor of the Portland Symphony Orchestra in Maine from 2016-2018, he conducted a variety of concert series, helped coordinate the orchestra’s extensive educational programs, and helped lead a program for concertgoers under 40 called “Symphony and Spirits”.
Crust was the Assistant Conductor of the National Youth Orchestra of the USA (NYO-USA) in the summers of 2017 and 2018, assisting Michael Tilson Thomas on an Asian tour, as well as Giancarlo Guerrero, Marin Alsop and James Ross at Carnegie Hall and in a side-by-side performance with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He has also served as Cover Conductor of the Kansas City Symphony, San Diego Symphony and Nashville Symphony, Assistant/Cover Conductor of the Boulder Philharmonic and Assistant Conductor of Opera McGill.
Abroad, he has led concerts with the Orchestra Giovanile Italiana in Italy, Hamburger Symphoniker at the Mendelssohn Festival in Germany, the Moravian Philharmonic in the Czech Republic and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Chile in Santiago.
Crust is dedicated to exploring new ways of bringing the classical music experience into the 21st century through innovative programming and marketing, creating community-oriented and socially-sensitive concert experiences, and utilizing social media and unique venues. Crust is a firm believer in meaningful music education, having produced and written a number of original educational programs with orchestras, as well as innovative programs such as VSO Relaxed Concerts, designed for neurodiverse communities