After a three-year search; seven finalists’ concerts; and extensive surveys of musicians, audiences and board members, the Vermont Symphony Orchestra finally has a new music director. Andrew Crust, 35, a native of Kansas City, Kan., will take the podium in September for the first concert of the 2023-24 season. He follows Jaime Laredo, whose tenure lasted 20 years.
Crust, who is also music director of the smaller Lima Symphony Orchestra in Ohio, was the final candidate of the seven to guest-conduct the VSO, on February 4. He led a diverse program of new music — a birdsong-inspired piece by Canadian Jocelyn Morlock and a percussion-heavy work by Puerto Rican Roberto Sierra featuring electric violin soloist Tracy Silverman. The final piece was a Romantic-era Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky symphony.
Crust maintains a busy schedule guest-conducting around the U.S. Reached by phone in Vancouver, where he currently lives, he said he is “just overjoyed” to be joining the VSO, an orchestra with “an incredible 89-year legacy.”
During his guest-conducting visit, Crust said, he noticed a well-established sensibility among the musicians.
“Despite the fact that they come from all over the place, there’s really a feeling of family there,” he said. “They really wanted to work hard and are concerned with having a great artistic quality.”
He added, “When we performed Sierra’s piece” — a co-commission of the VSO — “it was the third performance in the world. I could tell that this orchestra has a healthy experience with new music. They grasped the style right away. They appreciate trying new repertoire that’s outside of the canon.”
For her part, VSO executive director Elise Brunelle said she is “smiling all the time” at the thought of the new director.
“All the things you need in a music director — an understanding of musicians’ needs, knowing repertoire, being able to talk to anybody [from] kids to donors — he just ticks every single box,” Brunelle said. “Plus, he loves and knows Vermont. He has an honest desire to be here and work specifically with our musicians.”
Concertmaster Katherine Winterstein, one of three VSO musicians on the search committee, which also included administrators and board members, praised Crust’s conducting skills.
“We [musicians] talk about stick technique; he’s clear and easy to follow. And he’s a beautiful musician. I want my conductor to have a good concept of the overarching effect [of a piece] and good grasp of the details,” she said. “And [Crust] seems to know which details are important to manage and which are not, which is not the case with most conductors.” Winterstein also serves as the Boston Pops concertmaster and the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra associate concertmaster, and she plays in Boston Ballet.
Principal oboist Nancy Dimock , also on the search committee, commented that Crust was “incredibly charming and very efficient. That’s one of the things we look for when we’re evaluating conductors, because we have such limited time.” The orchestra has just four rehearsals per concert. “He told us what he wanted,” Dimock said, “but he was also generous and kind.”
“I think he’s going to be wonderful,” second flutist Anne Janson agreed. “He’s young. He’s ready to take it on. He’s really optimistic.”
Janson added, “It sounds like he wants to work with the community in every way he can, [including by] bringing in people with connections to Vermont and playing Vermont composers’ music.”
Crust has had an impressive amount of experience for a conductor of his age. After obtaining a master’s and doctorate in orchestral conducting from McGill University in Montréal and the University of Colorado Boulder, respectively, he held his first job, as assistant conductor of Maine’s Portland Symphony Orchestra, from 2016 to 2018.
He went on to hold the same position at the Memphis Symphony Orchestra (where he also conducted the Memphis Youth Symphony Program), then served as associate conductor of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (“the other VSO,” Crust joked) until he landed the Lima Symphony’s top job in 2020. Music directors typically hold two or occasionally even three top positions simultaneously, and Crust will retain the Ohio directorship while leading the VSO.
Crust has also spent significant time conducting opera, ballet, pops and film music with organizations such as Opera McGill, Ballet Memphis and the Jazz Ambassadors of the U.S. Army Field Band. He has conducted numerous concerts abroad and assisted venerated conductor Michael Tilson Thomas on an Asian tour of the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America.
Music education — something Crust studied as an undergraduate at Wichita State University — is a priority for him. In Lima, he initiated and runs a program for children called “Mornings With the Maestro,” and he has created and scripted numerous educational programs for full orchestra.
Also a visual artist, Crust said he enjoys the tactility and creativity of making art — elements missing in conducting — and even sells his work. His watercolors and ink drawings are inspired by Viennese fin de siècle artists Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele. On his art website and his Instagram account, @stick.and.brush, he notes that studying those artists’ work helps him understand composers of the period, such as Gustav Mahler and Arnold Schoenberg.
The young conductor has even caught the attention of Hollywood. In the Oscar-nominated Tár, Todd Field’s meticulously researched movie about the downfall of a famous conductor, Crust’s name is dropped along with those of Marin Alsop and “Lenny,” or Leonard Bernstein. That was a surprise for the conductor.
“A friend saw the premiere in LA and immediately texted me,” Crust said. “I have no clue how it happened.”
Crust already has ties to Burlington. While living in Montréal during the four years of his master’s program, he “came down a lot,” he said. “I love … the mountains, the lake, the fact that Burlington is a college town but also low-key and relaxed.” And several VSO musicians previously played under Crust with the Portland Symphony.
In describing his plans for the VSO, Crust stays general. He hopes to “collaborate with as many local groups as possible while also engaging world-class soloists.” He’s keen to create “more access to more people, trying to not only increase ticket sales but bring younger people in and expand the diversity of programming.
“Different people have different access points to orchestral music — through pops, chamber music, films, video games — and I don’t put one form above any other,” he added.
Crust grew up in a family that exposed him to “every kind of music,” including the Beatles, jazz, classic rock, funk, musical theater and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Requiem in D Minor. (He said his mother would play the last one so loud that it drowned out the vacuum cleaner.)
“It’s vital that we support contemporary music,” he said, noting that “people respond in visceral ways to new music” and that many orchestras, along with the Metropolitan Opera, are finding that new music sells more tickets.
“Luckily, the VSO already has a rich tradition of playing and commissioning new music,” he said. At the same time, Crust added, “I’m not going to stop doing Beethoven.” At the top of his list of favorite nonliving composers are “Brahms, Mahler, Stravinsky … and, lately, Lili Boulanger.” (She was the first female composer to win the Prix de Rome.)
To attract younger audiences, Crust is considering ideas such as “after-work concerts at an earlier time than usual, new venues, late-night concerts.” He commended the VSO on its Jukebox series, which brings quartet performances to unusual venues, such as South Burlington’s Higher Ground nightclub. At the Portland Symphony, Crust curated a program for under-40-year-olds called “Symphony and Spirits”: Young people got discounted tickets, were seated together and could enjoy a music-themed cocktail.
“The trouble [with the younger crowd] is competition from not only other live music but Netflix and Hulu,” he noted.
The new music director said he’ll take his time launching new initiatives at the VSO.
“I still have a lot to learn,” Crust said. “The good news is that things have been going well. You don’t want to immediately rearrange the furniture, because [the VSO has] a culture and history that’s built up over decades. They’ve been in good hands with Jaime … I have big shoes to fill.”
Learn more at vso.org, andrewcrust.com and art.andrewcrust.com.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Taking the Baton | Andrew Crust is the Vermont Symphony Orchestra’s new music director”
This article appears in Mar 22-28, 2023.
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