Q&A with Music Alum Andrew van der Paardt

When Andrew van der Paardt (BM '17, oboe) was an undergraduate at Boston Conservatory, he won the school’s prestigious Orchestra Concerto Competition despite—or rather, because of—a last minute change in repertoire. For months he’d been practicing Peteris Vasks’s Concerto for English Horn, but his gut was telling him to change things up. Just one week before the competition’s first round, he decided to switch to a different piece, one to which he felt a much stronger innate connection: Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Oboe Concerto in A Minor.

“I just had this intuition. I adore the Vaughan Williams concerto, and I felt like there was so much in it that I could do personally,” he says. “Knowing how you can sell whatever part that you’re playing—that’s what is going to turn heads and make people really listen to you.”

In the years since his graduation, van der Paardt has built an enviable freelance career by drawing on his creative adaptability and consistently finding ways to distinguish himself, be it a solo concerto performance or a freelance job with the Boston Pops. He joined the orchestra of the New York City Ballet in 2023, and frequently travels north to New England for substitute roles with the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Philharmonic, and Portland Symphony Orchestra.

You’ve been super active as a freelance musician, which recently led to a permanent role with the New York City Ballet. What has the freelance experience been like for you?

In a way, I’m still a freelancer because my job at New York City Ballet is part time. So, when we’re not in season, I am picking up extra gigs. I often say, “I’m busy until I’m not.” And that just means that when I’m busy, I’m slammed, especially at New York City Ballet where I’m often doing seven or eight shows a week. But, one of the challenges of being a freelance musician is finding ways to fill your time when you don’t have gigs. So, I’ve been exploring those avenues a little bit. I started my own reed business, [and] I’m starting to get into composition. 

You need to become self-motivated, and that’s sort of the challenge but it’s good at the same time. I’ve considered going fully down the performance route, trying to take more auditions to enter a full-time position with a full-time orchestra. But there’s another side of me that’s like, hang on a second. I’m really enjoying this liberty that I have.

What qualities have made you well suited for a freelance career?

I think it’s just finding any opportunity you can to shine. I don’t know if that sounds cliche but—especially when I was in school—I always would find a little solo that I could really shine in. It’s finding those little things in the parts that you’re playing, putting your own musicianship into them, and finding ways to basically show off. As performers, we do need to have a certain level of ego that is not necessarily, “I’m better than everyone.” It’s more, “I believe I can put my full self into this and really perform at my best.” That’s the route I went, and I continue to go down in terms of performing. How can I contribute in the best way possible?

How is playing for dancers different from a straightforward orchestral performance?

There does need to be a strong relationship between what’s going on onstage and what’s in the pit. This was actually something that I had to study and analyze when I first started at New York City Ballet because, when I was a student, oftentimes my teachers would tell us, “Try to emulate a vocalist. Try to emulate their legato, their phrasing, their vibrato, the emotion they put into it.” I’d never really thought about doing the same thing for a dancer. So, it really forced me to think about that. What do I need to change in my playing or what do I need to amplify—something that I’m already doing, but I haven’t really honed in on yet—to complement what’s going on on stage.

It sounds like this job has helped you to access your musicality in new ways.

Oh, absolutely, yeah. A lot of that has to do with maybe playing in the same manner that the dancer will be dancing in, whether that’s a more rigid dance move or a more grand and poised dance move. A lot of times, I’ll go down to the archives of New York City Ballet, and I’ll watch the performance. Then once I see what they’re doing—for instance, they’re moving very minimally or it's sporadic movement or something—that impacts the way I play the piece. 

I love there being a full production onstage, because even though the music is still at the center, it’s as if the visuals and what’s going on sonically are coming together as one—and I’m just a part of that. I think that’s super cool. I’ve loved it from the moment I stepped into the pit.
 

You were back at Boston Conservatory in 2024, to lead a master class for the Reeds Festival Weekend. How did it feel to be teaching at your alma mater? 

It was incredible. I was nervous out of my mind because it was my first time teaching a master class. But it felt like the perfect environment to give my first master class because it felt like I was coming home, in a sense. One thing I’ve always admired about Boston Conservatory is that the student population seems to be so supportive of each other. I knew how unique that kind of setting was, especially having gone to other schools where it wasn’t as tight-knit of a community as Boston Conservatory. It’s a really special, unique place. Going back last year and teaching the master class and getting to know the musicians there today, it felt like nothing had changed, which really warmed my heart.

My teacher, Rob Sheena, was in the audience when I was giving the master class, and that was both sort of scary and relieving at the same time. [He] and I have always had a very close connection as student–teacher and as people in general, so it felt like, even if I’m making a few mistakes here and there, I still have a support system in the audience.

You worked with Robert Sheena for four years as an undergraduate. In what ways did you benefit from that conservatory model, working consistently with the same teacher over a long arc of time?

To be as comfortable as possible in your lessons, you need to have a good relationship with your teacher. Rob Sheena was the perfect teacher to provide that sort of environment for me. He was very open-minded about the things I wanted to explore. If I had a question, if we were fixing something in my technique, if I pushed back a little bit, he would always be very open to having a conversation about it, which I think was really important in my growth as a young musician. It wasn’t, “You’re gonna do as I say and not ask questions,” which is an environment I don’t thrive in so much. It was more, “What are your ideas? What direction do you want to head in, and how can I help you get there?”—which was the best way I could have learned over a four-year period.