Dean Anderson – Biography
Dean Anderson has successfully conducted numerous orchestras of all levels including professional, community, university, and youth ensembles. He has performed with members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic such as concertmaster Martin Chalifour, principal second violin Lyndon Johnston Taylor and former principal trombone James Miller. He has also performed with violinist Andres Cardenes and violist Yizhak Shotten in addition to such artists as Smokey Robinson, Manhattan Transfer, John Tesh, Lincoln Mayorga, Arlo Guthrie and Dick Dale.
He is the Music Director and Artistic Director for the Dana Point Symphony, where he has completed six successful seasons with the orchestra. In addition, he is the Artistic Director for Symphony Irvine. Mr. Anderson is also the Director of Orchestra Studies at La Sierra University and the Director of Instrumental Activities at Occidental College. He is also the Music Director for the Montecito International Music Festival Orchestra. He has served as cover conductor for the San Diego Symphony.
As a guest conductor, Mr. Anderson has been invited to conduct Brazilian professional orchestras in Barra Mansa Symphony Orchestra in Rio de Janeiro, and the Teatro da Paz Symphony Orchestra in Belem. He also led the National Congress Chamber Orchestra in Buenos Aires, the Hong Kong Chamber Orchestra, the Siam Sinfonietta, and the Grumo Festival Orchestra (Italy) in addition to other orchestras such as the Capistrano Valley Symphony and the Yakima Chamber Symphony Orchestra. He was invited to guest conduct the Ho Chi Minh Ballet Symphony for the 20th Anniversary of the Saigon Times, making him the first American to conduct in Saigon since the end of the Vietnam War. He also led a performance of music for orchestra with chinese pipa and erhu featuring soloists Tu Shan Xiang and George Gao respectively. The performance took place in Nagoya, Japan.
As a versatile conductor, Mr. Anderson has collaborated with various artistic organizations such as the Chance Theater, the La Habra Depot Theater, the Maverick Theater, and the Biola University Theater Department. Productions under his music direction include Cabaret, I Love You You’re Perfect Now Change, A Grand Night for Singing, the Fantasticks, Company, Closer than Ever, FIG:RO (Retro Opera), A Chorus Line, Snow White, Nuncrackers, Anything Goes, Fiddler on the Roof, Chicago, and Into the Woods.
He has conducted several ballet performances with the Anaheim Ballet including productions of Peter and the Wolf and Nutcracker as well as with the Nouveau Chamber Ballet production of Massenet’s La Cigale. He also conducted music by Kostas Christides and Minos Matsas for the full-length documentary on the life and work of Stan Lee entitled With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story. The recording session took place at Capitol Records Studios in Hollywood, CA.
As an opera conductor, he has led the Italian premiere of Il Pianista Disgraziata by Giuseppe Lupis and conducted performances in Bologna, Assisi, Loro Piceno, Grumo, Binetto, and Toritto. He conducted Il Segreto di Susanna by Wolf-Ferrari at UCLA and Gianni Schicchi at Fullerton College. He led the USA West Coast premieres of Daron Hagen's Little Nemo in Slumberland with the La Sierra University Opera and Saverio Mercadante's I Duo Figaro with the UCLA Opera. He also made his Walt Disney Hall performance debut in June 2015 with the original operatic tableaux O My Son, composed by Marcos Galvany.
Mr. Anderson studied conducting with Edward Dolbashian and violin with John McLeod. He also participated in conducting master classes with Gustav Meier, Marin Alsop, Mark Gibson, Mihail Agafita, Brooke Creswell, Lawrence Golan and Don Thulean. He earned the Doctorate of Musical Arts in Orchestral Conducting at UCLA under the mentorship of Neal Stulberg.
