Guest Conductor
One of the nation's most promising and talented young conductors, Andrew Grams has already appeared with many of the great orchestras of the world, including the Cleveland Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the St. Louis Symphony, the Detroit Symphony, the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, D.C., and the orchestras of Baltimore, Dallas, Houston, and New Jersey. Internationally, he has conducted the Montreal Symphony, the Orchestre National de Lyon, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the Melbourne Symphony, the Orchestra of Santa Cecilia (Rome), the Residentie Orchestra of the Hague, the Hamburg Symphony, and the Malmo Symphony, to name a few.
Mr. Grams was a protege of Franz Welser-Moest and served as assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra from 2004 to 2007.
Mr. Grams made his subscription series debut with the Cleveland Orchestra in May 2006, conducting Schoenberg's Second Chamber Symphony, and conducted his first series of full-length subscription concerts with the Cleveland Orchestra in November of that year. He also led programs with the orchestra at the Blossom Music Center in 2006, 2007, and 2010.
In 2002 Mr. Grams was named assistant conductor of the Reading Symphony Orchestra in Pennsylvania, and returned to conduct that orchestra in 2005. He was selected to spend the summer of 2003 studying with David Zinman, Murry Sidlin, and Michael Stern at the American Academy of Conducting at the Aspen Music Festival, and returned to that program again in 2004.
A Maryland native, Mr. Grams began conducting at age 17, when he directed the World Youth Symphony Orchestra at Interlochen Arts Camp. In 1999 he received a bachelor of music degree in violin performance from Juilliard. Four years later he received a conducting degree from the Curtis Institute of Music, where he worked with Otto-Werner Mueller.
Also an accomplished violinist, Mr. Grams was a member of the New York City Ballet Orchestra at Lincoln Center from 1998 to 2004, serving as acting associate principal second violin in 2002 and 2004. In addition, he has performed with ensembles including the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke's, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and the New Jersey Symphony.