Calvin Eugene Simmons was the first African American conductor of a major orchestra in the United States. He was born April 27, 1950 in Oakland, California. Simmons was just 32 years of age when he died Aug. 21, 1982 after falling from a canoe in a pond near Lake Placid, New York. His entry in Wikipedia Encyclopedia includes the following overview of his life and career:
“At the age of nine Simmons entered the Bay Area's musical scene and began living his dream of becoming a world-class musician. He had been taught the piano from an early age by his mother, Matty. By the age of eleven, he was conducting the San Francisco Boys Chorus, of which he had been a member.
After working as assistant conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta, Simmons became musical director of the Oakland Symphony Orchestra at age 28; he led the orchestra for four years. He continued to conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic, both at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and at the Hollywood Bowl. He would be supporting Carmen Macrae singing jazz one night, and then conducting William Walton or Holst's The Planets a night or two later. He was the first African-American to be named conductor of a major U.S. symphony orchestra and a frequent guest conductor with some of the nation's major opera companies and orchestras (e.g. the Philadelphia Orchestra and others).
He made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera conducting Humperdinck's Hansel und Gretel, returning the following year. He was active at the Glyndebourne Festival in England. He collaborated with the British director Jonathan Miller on a celebrated production of Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte at the Opera Theater of St. Louis (USA) shortly before his death. He remained active at the San Francisco Opera all his adult life, supporting intendant Kurt Herbert Adler, first as a repetiteur and then as a member of the conducting staff. He made his formal debut conducting Puccini's La Boheme with Ileana Cotrubas. His later work on a production of Shostakovich's Lady MacBeth of the Mtsensk District drew national attention.
His final concerts were three performances of the Requiem of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the summer of 1982 with the Masterworks Chorale and the Midsummer Mozart Festival Orchestra.”
Beverly Sills, Chairwoman of Lincoln Center, had this to say:
"Calvin Simmons was an extraordinary human being and a superb musician. His story is one that should inspire people, especially young people, to go for the gold ring."
Composer John Harbison wrote Exequien for Calvin Simmons (5 mins.). His program note for the composition reads as follows:
“Exequien for Calvin Simmons was composed in August of 1982, shortly after I learned of the death of Calvin Simmons at 32 from drowning. It was not a piece I planned. I was composing a scene in a ballet, where the protagonist enters the underworld, but the shade I kept meeting was Calvin, a hero of our time, not of ancient times. I composed this Exequien as a going-out for him, based on that ‘meeting’; the music shared material with the ballet but does not belong in it.
All memorials are in some way self-serving, since we are also feeling sorry for ourselves, I first encountered Calvin when he called and asked for a piece to play with his Oakland Symphony. He is still the only conductor of a full time professional orchestra with whom I have had this experience (it became a yearly event), and when he did perform my music, he did with devotion and flair. He established links to many composers, to young American performers, and to new listeners. He lived joyously, with abandon, for the present. Even my short pieces, so immediate in response, couldn’t escape his buoyancy, and became a measure for slow dance rather than a dirge.”
Wikipedia comments on the composer's legacy:
“The Oakland Symphony Orchestra was reorganized in July 1988 as the Oakland East Bay Symphony Orchestra. Simmons has been honored by the naming of the Calvin Simmons Theatre at the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center in Oakland.”
Calvin+Simmons" rel="tag">Calvin Simmons
classical+music" rel="tag">classical musicOakland+Symphony" rel="tag">Oakland SymphonyAfrican+American" rel="tag">African AmericanBlack+Conductor" rel="tag">Black ConductorBlack+History" rel="tag">Black History
No comments:
Post a Comment