New Year's Eve with The Symphony

In June 2022, he was named Music Director of the Greenwich Symphony Orchestra in Greenwich, CT, where he began conducting concerts in September 2022. From 2013 to 2023, he was Principal Guest Conductor of The Florida Orchestra, leading nine concert series each season, including the orchestra’s highly acclaimed Coffee series. He was previously the music director of the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra and associate conductor of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra. In September 2019, he was appointed Music Director of the Lake Placid Sinfonietta, the orchestra of the Adirondacks, which performs for six weeks each summer. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2007, conducting the New York Pops in an all-Gershwin tribute including Rhapsody in Blue, which he conducted from the keyboard. He has performed as guest conductor of many of the finest orchestras in the country.

In 2017, Stuart led two tours of Russia through the American embassy in Moscow, bringing American music to Russian audiences in seven cities. In 2008, Stuart, along with several members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, spent 11 days in residence at the Tianjin Conservatory of Music in Tianjin, China, conducting the orchestra and coaching and performing chamber music. 

An accomplished pianist, Stuart has impressive credits as a soloist and chamber musician. He has performed concertos in Harrisburg, Greensboro, Charleston, New York, and Chautauqua, most often conducting from the keyboard. As a composer and arranger, he has created dozens of orchestral works, ranging from entire pops shows to works for symphony orchestra. His most recent composition, Common Fanfare for an Uncommon Orchestra, received its world premiere by the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra in September of 2017.

Stuart’s activities also extend to Broadway. In 2003, he won the Tony award for orchestration with Billy Joel for the musical Movin’ Out, which he helped create with Twyla Tharp, and served as the music coordinator for every production of the show. He acted in Terrence McNally’s Tony Award-winning play Master Class, opposite Zoe Caldwell and Audra MacDonald, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. He has also served as associate conductor of the national touring company of West Side Story and as conductor of the Charleston production of Porgy and Bess. 

In May 2020, Stuart received an honorary doctorate from Lebanon Valley College. He has been awarded the Joanne Rogers Award for contribution to the artistic life of Pennsylvania, the Jump Street Spectrum Award, Lebanon Valley College’s 2012 Founders Day Award, the Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts from Theater Harrisburg, and Leadership Harrisburg’s Platinum Award for Servant Leadership.

Stuart holds degrees from Harvard University, the Yale School of Music, and the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied conducting with Otto-Werner Mueller. He studied piano with Drora and Baruch Arnon and with Keiko Sato. He resides in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Marty. They are the proud parents of two children, Sara and Zev.