Lawrence Foster (born October 23, 1941) is an American conductor of Romanian ancestry. Foster was born in Los Angeles, California, to Jewish-Romanian parents. His father died when Foster was three years old. He was later adopted by his stepfather, from whom he took the surname Foster. Foster studied conducting with German conductor Fritz Zweig and piano with Joanna Grauden, both in Los Angeles. His other teachers and mentors have included: Karl Böhm, Bruno Walter, Henry Lewis, and Franz Waxman...