Word: conductor
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Last week at the San Francisco World's Fair, the San Francisco Symphony, under Composer-Conductor Meredith Willson, played a work listed in the program as Prelude to The Great Dictator, by Charlie Chaplin. The program was not quite accurate. Actor Chaplin made up the four themes of the Prelude ("Invasion of Osterlich," "Hanah Theme," "Barber Shop Theme," "Charlie Motif"), but the music was fashioned, and orchestrated, by Composer Willson. Although Actor Chaplin always writes music for his films, this was the first to be performed in concert. Said the critics: "Obvious as most satirical attempts. . . . Interesting. ... A pleasant...
...London Philharmonic Orchestra, one of the best ten in the world, has lived from hand to mouth for a year. When it needed money at the beginning of the war, its conductor and occasional angel, Sir Thomas Beecham (pills), said bitterly that all he could think of was to appeal to the Germans. But Sir Thomas succeeded during the winter in raising ?2,000. By midsummer that was nearly gone, and Philharmonic men began pooling their resources. Then appeared a new angel: Jack Hylton, popular dance-band leader. He guaranteed salaries and overhead-assumed a total contingent liability...
...years pilgrims have gone to the No.1 U. S. summer music shrine, the Berkshire Symphonic Festival, to admire the precision of the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the benevolent tyranny of its greying conductor, Serge Koussevitzky. This year, besides the festival, Tanglewood houses a new project also dear to Koussevitzky, the Berkshire Music Center, intended to be a top-flight summer school for musicians...
Most notable feature of the school: a special class for conductors from which the Director hopes to turn out five top-rank maestros in five years. Long convinced that a conductor should handle himself as featly as his orchestra, Koussevitzky hired Manhattan Ballet Master Erick Hawkins, partner of famed U. S. Dancer Martha Graham, to teach his pupils podium gestures. Soon Teacher Hawkins had the pupil conductors pirouetting and posturing, trying to become as expressive as dancers. Some of them took it seriously, some were embarrassed. Grumbled one: "Makes a fellow feel selfconscious...
...Danse Macabre spelled death for one of its performers. Later Violist Jacques Tushinsky was struck and killed by a bus. Not until the orchestra was on its way back to the U. S. last week was Maestro Toscanini informed of the death. Whereupon the white-haired, 73-year-old conductor burst into tears, refused all nourishment but fruit juice...