Meet Guest Conductor Andrew Litton

Pacific Symphony is excited to welcome Guest Conductor Andrew Litton for our Beethoven & Shostakovich concert, Feb. 22-24, at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa. The evening’s program features Charles Griffes’ The White Peacock, Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto with Alessio Bax, and Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony. You can learn more about Maestro Litton in the blog post below.

The 2023-24 Classical Series is presented by the Hal and Jeanette Segerstrom Family Foundation. Media sponsors are The Park Club California, PBS SoCal, and Classical California KUSC.

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 Litton 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 honors.

In addition to conducting over 50 performances at the New York City Ballet, Litton 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 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 Sinfónica de Galicia, and the Royal Swedish Orchestra.

An avid opera conductor with a keen theatrical sense, Litton 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 programs 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 Litton’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 2023-24, Andrew will make his debut with the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden. 

An accomplished pianist, Andrew often performs as piano soloist, conducting from the keyboard, most recently 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.  

Litton’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 Litton 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 honors 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.

To learn more about the concert and get tickets, click here.