Conductor
Hailed by critics for “spunky, vibrant and captivating” (Deseret Morning News, USA) performances with “unmatched sonorities and moving expressivity” (Der Rheinpfalz News, Germany), Dr. Justin W. Lewis is emerging as a conductor with a contagious passion for uniting people through music. Lewis is a conductor in the U.S. Air Force band program. Under his leadership, Air Force bands have given more than 2,000 performances in 43 countries for more than a billion people through radio and television broadcasts. During the past year, Lewis has led Air Force band tours to Afghanistan, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Germany, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan to strengthen American diplomatic relations abroad.
As music director of the Rheinland-Pfalz International Choir, Lewis has prepared the choir to perform Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem with the Sinfonieorchester des Landkreises Kaiserslautern, Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass at the choir’s Carnegie Hall debut and Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem at the Great Britain Choral Festival in Cambridge, England.
A frequent guest conductor and clinician, Lewis has led the Moldovan National Symphony, the National Presidential Orchestra of Ukraine, the Ukraine National Philharmonic, Luxembourg’s Musique Militaire Grand-Ducale, the Doha Orchestra and Singers, the Afghan National Institute of Music, the Djiboutian National Music Institute, the Middle East South Asia Honor Band, the Virginia Choral Society, the Voices of Hampton Roads, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square.
As a cellist and vocalist, Lewis has performed under the baton of Christoph Eschenbach, Iván Fischer, Sir Christopher Hogwood, David Robertson, John Rutter and Gerard Schwarz. He has recorded albums on the Centaur and Shadow Mountain Record labels.
A native of Lemoyne, Pennsylvania, Lewis is an alumnus of Cedar Cliff High School. He holds a bachelor of music from Temple University, two masters of music and a teaching certificate from Penn State and and a doctor of musical arts from The Catholic University of America. He studied conducting at Westminster Choir College’s Choral Institute at University of Oxford and is currently studying conducting at the Rotterdam Conservatory of Music in the Netherlands. Lewis lives in Winnweiler, Germany with his wife, Jennifer, and their three children.