Andrew Litton

Andrew Litton

When Andrew Litton was appointed as music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra (DSO) in 1994, he was the first American to head a major orchestra in the US for more than a decade. Classical music was struggling and home-grown conductors were staying away, preferring to go overseas to head state-funded orchestras. The DSO was a case in point, straining to make ends meet with an annual endowment of $19m (£9.7m).

By the time Litton stood down in May 2006 he'd increased the orchestra's endowment to around $100m (£51m) and dramatically reversed its fortunes. It's not surprising that he's now regarded as an icon of orchestral leadership.

Litton says the key to his success was patience and respect for potential donors: 'I always say you can't ask on the first date. People need to feel there's a reason to be generous and they have to believe in you, but that takes work: lots of dinners, lunches and meet-and-greets.'

He left the DSO to become music director of Norway's Bergen Philharmonic, a position that allows him to concentrate less on administration and more on music. It's a welcome change for the 38-year-old: 'It's 90 per cent music and only 10 per cent other stuff so it's a totally different set of responsibilities,' he says. 'It's like having a vacation. There's a great deal of socialising and a real sense of camaraderie.

'We do a lot of Scandinavian repertoire and it's been great,' he adds. 'It's been a totally new set of experiences for me. I've become an expert in Grieg.'

'I grew up right in the centre of New York so I was going to operas and concerts all the time. I saw the beginning and end of some legendary careers.

Litton is committed to 14 weeks a year with the orchestra, but he also remains firmly rooted to his home country. Born and raised in New York City, he now lives in the south-eastern New York suburb of Westchester with his wife and two children. He also studied as a pianist at New York's Juilliard School, and is full of enthusiasm for the city's musical history: 'I grew up right in the centre of New York so I was going to operas and concerts all the time. I saw the beginning and end of some legendary careers. I was at concerts literally three or four nights a week or as many times as school would allow. It's hard to leave something like that.'

Litton was 10 when he decided that he wanted to be a conductor. He'd already been taking piano lessons for five years, but it was one of Leonard Bernstein's famous children's concerts at Carnegie Hall that made his mind up. 'From that point on the piano was just a means to an end,' he says. 'He was conducting Respighi's The Pines of Rome and something in it really ignited my imagination. I came bouncing out of the hall and told my mother that I wanted to be a conductor.'

Another of his idols is the great cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich, who was his mentor during his first job as assistant conductor of Washington's National Symphony Orchestra. 'He is the one person who has been the greatest influence on me,' he says.

One of the first things Litton worked on with the orchestra was Rostropovich's recording of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet - and by way of coincidence, his first recording with the Bergen Philharmonic, released on BIS in January, is of the same repertoire. He's also recorded two Norwegian piano concertos with Piers Lane ('The whole orchestra was just beaming all the way through the sessions') and a contrabass concerto by Kalevi Aho.

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