SLSO’s Adam Crane has accepted a post with the New York Philharmonic

Even if you don’t know Adam Crane’s rather impressive title (that would be Senior Vice President of External Affairs and Strategic Initiatives) you know him from the Saturday Symphony Broadcasts on St. Louis Public Radio. Now in its eighth season, the show has been, he says, one of his proudest accomplishments during the near-decade he’s worked with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. If it sounds like he’s in retrospective mode, that’s because it was announced today that Crane has accepted a post with the New York Philharmonic. He’ll be serving as Vice President of External Affairs, a newly created position. (Though his new title is a bit more minimalist, he says the two roles will be very similar.) His final symphony broadcast will be on December 31, 2017, during one of David Robertson’s now-legendary New Year’s Eve concerts. (We will note, with a bittersweet twinge in our heart, that this’ll be Robertson’s last New Year’s Eve broadcast as well—though you can still see him conduct the symphony through the remainder of the season before he leaves his post as music director).  “It will be emotional,” Crane says. “A lot of laughter, and a lot of tears.”

Crane is a St. Louis native—he was part of SLSO’s Youth Orchestra—but headed off to study cello at New York University right after high school. After interning with Carnegie Hall’s public relations department during college, he stayed on as Assistant to the Executive Director and spent more than a decade on the East Coast. He then moved to Los Angeles, working with the L.A. Philharmonic, then led by Deborah Borda, who is now heading up the NY Philharmonic. Crane says he’s thrilled to be working with Borda again, as well as music director Jaap van Zweden, who actually made U.S. debut with the St. Louis Symphony. Crane’s first task after landing in New York, he says, will be working on the announcement of van Zweden’s inaugural season as Music Director. “It feels like the right thing at the right time,” Crane says. “I’m excited.”

If his departure sounds dramatic and final, Crane says that’s not the case. “It’s not goodbye. I’ll be back,” he says. “My mother lives here; I grew up here. I have great friends in the orchestra and on the staff. I’ll be back certainly to visit, and maybe do a cameo appearance on the broadcast at some point—at least rumor has it that I might, a couple of times between now and the end of the season.” The decision to leave, he adds, was incredibly difficult. What made the choice slightly less difficult, he says, was watching the symphony in its current thriving state. 

“It’s really important to me to know that the orchestra is in good hands, and I feel like it is and that the stage is set for great things ahead,” he says. “We’re trending in all of the right directions under Marie-Hélène’s leadership.” When he started nine and a half years ago, Crane adds, the symphony had a $3 million dollar deficit. Just recently, he had the joy of posting better news on SLSO’s social media. “I got to use the word ‘surplus,’ which was huge,” he says. “The progress has been phenomenal. And hopefully, I played a small role in that process of re-invigoration this community of great musicians, and the music.”