DR. ANDREW M. KURTZ enters his seventeenth season as Music & Executive Director and Conductor of the Gulf Coast Symphony. He was the winner of the prestigious 2007 “Performing Artist of the Year” Angel of the Arts Award. Kurtz is also General & Artistic Director and founder of the Center City Opera Theater, a professional opera company in Philadelphia, where he has led over four dozen productions, including  the world premieres of Lowell Liebermann’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (chamber orchestra version), Pulitzer-prize winning composer Paul Moravec & Wall Street Drama Critic Terry Teachout’s  Danse Russe, Peter Westergaard’s The Always Present Present, the North American Premiere of Edward Rushton’s The Shops, as well as the regional premieres of Adamo’s Little Women, Floyd’s Of Mice and Men, and Stravinksy’s Renard & Ragtime.

Kurtz’s conducting has been called “passionate, expansive, expert, and musical.” Kurtz’s repertoire encompasses a wide range of music styles from baroque to contemporary, and multiple genres including opera, symphonic, ballet, musical theater, jazz, cantorial and symphonic pops.

Kurtz is the international tour conductor of CANTORS: A Faith In Song, featuring three of the world’s leading Cantors: Alberto Mizrahi, Naftali Herstik and Benzion Miller. Kurtz is also Music Director of the Florida Jewish Philharmonic Orchestra. He remains Producing Artistic Director of Synergy Productions, a professional musical theater company in Southwest Florida.

Kurtz served on the Board of the Conductors Guild and was editor of their quarterly newsletter Podium Notes. An avid arts educator, Maestro Kurtz served as Resident Music Director of the Jr. Session at the Luzerne Music Center for eight summers, where he led the student orchestras and taught conducting. Kurtz currently serves as the Past-President of the Board of the Lee County Alliance for the Arts.

Kurtz’s 2011-2012 season includes a dozen concerts with the Gulf Coast Symphony, plus the world premiere of Michael Ching’s  Slaying the Dragon with an original  libretto by Ellen Frankel, based on the true story chronicled in the book Not By The Sword by Kathryn Watterson; the East Coast premiere of Daniel Catan’s Il Postino, and the Philadelphia premiere of Jack Heggie’s Three Decembers  with the Center City Opera Theater.  He will also led new productions of the Marriage of Figaro and La Boheme  the plus workshops of a half dozen other new operas currently in development as part of the Center City Opera Theater’s New Opera Creative Development project.   This year Kurtz will be the guest conductor for the Wilmington Community Orchestra for their November and January concerts.

Kurtz has been a regular guest conductor with the Charlotte Symphony. Previous seasons saw Kurtz’s debuts with the Gonzaga Symphony Orchestra (Spokane, WA) and the International Master Musicians Orchestra. He made his New York City conducting debut with the Metropolitan Repertory Ballet in a Jazz Ballet, “Sinatra & Swing” at the TRIBECA Performing Arts Center.

As a 2001 First Prize winner of the Accademia Dell’Arte di Firenze International Conducting Competition, Kurtz made his European conducting debut with the Dell’Arte Symphonietta in Florence, Italy, and he is a former staff conductor at the Israel Vocal Arts Institute in Tel Aviv.

Highlights of the various conducting posts to his credit include work with the Metropolitan Opera Guild, The Pennsylvania Opera Theater, The Pennsylvania Ballet, the Ash Lawn-Highland Opera Festival and the Ocean City Pops.

Kurtz completed his Doctoral studies in conducting at the Peabody Conservatory and is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Virginia where he received his Master’s degree in Music History and a Bachelor of Arts in music and drama.