Andrew van der Paardt

Originally from the Central Valley of California, Andrew van der Paardt began his career as an active freelance oboist in the Greater Boston Area. He holds positions with the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, Boston Philharmonic and Phoenix Orchestra, and he frequently performs with the Boston Symphony, Boston Pops, Boston Ballet Orchestra, Portland Symphony in Maine, and Vista Philharmonic. He attended the New England Conservatory (NEC), The Boston Conservatory, and California State University of Long Beach for his schooling, and his principal teachers include John Ferrillo, Anne Marie Gabriele, Robert Sheena, David Weiss, and Rachel Aldrich. Along with serving as Acting English Horn with the San Antonio Symphony in early 2020, he was recently appointed as English Horn/Section Oboe with the New York City Ballet earlier this year.

Andrew has been active in many performance opportunities throughout his college and professional careers. He was the winner of the Boston Woodwind Society’s Ralph Gomberg Oboe Merit Award Competition and The Boston Conservatory Instrumental Concerto Competition during his time in school. As a result of winning both, he was featured as a soloist with The Boston Conservatory Symphony Orchestra and in New England Conservatory’s annual Double Reed Weekend. He has attended the Music Academy of the West (MAW) and Tanglewood Music Center (TMC) as an oboe fellow, where he studied with oboists such as Eugene Izotov, Cynthia DeAlmeida, John Ferrillo, Robert Sheena, and Mark McEwen. He has performed Jean Sibelius’s The Swan of Tuonela with the NEC and TMC Orchestras and Aaron Copland’s Quiet City with the California State University of Long Beach’s Wind Symphony as an English horn soloist.

Andrew performed in Phoenix Orchestra’s livestream series titled From The Nest and participated in their video series titled The Chronophone throughout the pandemic. He performed in the Boston Symphony’s world premiere of John Williams’ Violin Concerto No. 2 under the direction of John Williams, which was recorded and broadcast on PBS in the summer of 2021. Directly following this, he performed with pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet for the Boston Symphony’s performance of Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto at Tanglewood. In November of 2022, he went on tour to Japan with the Boston Symphony where he performed in Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka. He is set to premiere a solo English horn piece titled Theme with Variations by composer Robert Smith with the Chamber Orchestra of Boston in the fall of 2023. Additionally, he sells oboe and English horn reeds to advanced high school and college students from the San Francisco Conservatory, Yale University, and California State University of Fullerton and has considered starting his own reed business. Andrew will be moving to New York City this summer to pursue his new position with the New York City Ballet Orchestra.