["James DePreist conducts a rehearsal of the Pasadena Symphony at the
Ambassador Auditorium in 2010. DePreist formerly led the Oregon Symphony
for more than 20 years and served with several other orchestras across
the United States and the globe over his career.
(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times / October 20, 2010)"]
James DePreist, artistic
advisor to the Pasadena Symphony and Pops and one of the few African
American conductors to lead major orchestras in the United States and
abroad, died Friday at his home in Scottsdale, Ariz. He was 76.
The cause was complications of a heart attack he had last spring, said his manager, Jason Bagdade.
DePreist overcame polio in his 20s to pursue a conducting career that took him to stages from Sweden to Japan over four decades. His longest and most distinguished tenure was with the Oregon Symphony, where he was music director from 1980 to 2003, a period when that orchestra gained national and international renown.
In 2010 he assumed the top musical post at the Pasadena Symphony after the unamicable departure of its longtime music director, Jorge Mester. "We brought him in after our 25-years-long music director left. There was a bit of uneasiness and unsettled feelings among the orchestra," Paul Jan Zdunek, chief executive of the Pasadena Symphony Assn., said Friday.
"James came in and was just a Zen master. He had this aura about him. He didn't have to say anything. It was the way he looked at you and held himself," Zdunek said. "And his musicianship was beyond reproach."
DePreist was also permanent conductor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and director emeritus of conducting and orchestral studies at the Juilliard School in New York.
...
He entered the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School as a pre-law student in 1954 and earned a bachelor's degree in 1958. Realizing he did not want to be a lawyer, he switched gears, earning a master's degree in the arts from the University of Pennsylvania in 1961 and studying with noted composer Vincent Persichetti at the Philadelphia Conservatory. In college he formed a jazz group called the Jimmy DePreist Quintet that performed on "The Tonight Show" with Steve Allen in 1956.
In 1962 the State Department invited DePreist to teach and perform jazz on a cultural exchange tour of Asia. In Thailand he was given the opportunity to conduct a Bangkok orchestra, which was "that kind of revelatory experience that we read about and hope for." He knew he wanted to be a conductor.
...
Finding it difficult to obtain a serious classical conducting position in the U.S., he went abroad and made his European debut in 1969 leading the Rotterdam Philharmonic. He was associate conductor under Antal Dorati of the National Symphony in Washington, D.C., in 1971 when he conducted at Constitution Hall, the venue that had turned away his aunt in 1939 because she was black. After one rehearsal, he called Anderson and said, "You know, it's incredible to me that you couldn't do what I just did," he told the Associated Press in 2002.
He became the first African American conductor of the Houston Symphony in 1976. That year he also began a seven-year stint as music director of the Quebec Symphony.
In 1980 he was hired as music director of the Oregon Symphony, and over the next several years amplified its budget, raised players' salaries and stretched its repertoire to include more American music. He "built it into a virtuoso band more than able to hold its own in any international company," Gramophone magazine wrote in 2001.
The cause was complications of a heart attack he had last spring, said his manager, Jason Bagdade.
DePreist overcame polio in his 20s to pursue a conducting career that took him to stages from Sweden to Japan over four decades. His longest and most distinguished tenure was with the Oregon Symphony, where he was music director from 1980 to 2003, a period when that orchestra gained national and international renown.
In 2010 he assumed the top musical post at the Pasadena Symphony after the unamicable departure of its longtime music director, Jorge Mester. "We brought him in after our 25-years-long music director left. There was a bit of uneasiness and unsettled feelings among the orchestra," Paul Jan Zdunek, chief executive of the Pasadena Symphony Assn., said Friday.
"James came in and was just a Zen master. He had this aura about him. He didn't have to say anything. It was the way he looked at you and held himself," Zdunek said. "And his musicianship was beyond reproach."
DePreist was also permanent conductor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and director emeritus of conducting and orchestral studies at the Juilliard School in New York.
...
He entered the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School as a pre-law student in 1954 and earned a bachelor's degree in 1958. Realizing he did not want to be a lawyer, he switched gears, earning a master's degree in the arts from the University of Pennsylvania in 1961 and studying with noted composer Vincent Persichetti at the Philadelphia Conservatory. In college he formed a jazz group called the Jimmy DePreist Quintet that performed on "The Tonight Show" with Steve Allen in 1956.
In 1962 the State Department invited DePreist to teach and perform jazz on a cultural exchange tour of Asia. In Thailand he was given the opportunity to conduct a Bangkok orchestra, which was "that kind of revelatory experience that we read about and hope for." He knew he wanted to be a conductor.
...
Finding it difficult to obtain a serious classical conducting position in the U.S., he went abroad and made his European debut in 1969 leading the Rotterdam Philharmonic. He was associate conductor under Antal Dorati of the National Symphony in Washington, D.C., in 1971 when he conducted at Constitution Hall, the venue that had turned away his aunt in 1939 because she was black. After one rehearsal, he called Anderson and said, "You know, it's incredible to me that you couldn't do what I just did," he told the Associated Press in 2002.
He became the first African American conductor of the Houston Symphony in 1976. That year he also began a seven-year stint as music director of the Quebec Symphony.
In 1980 he was hired as music director of the Oregon Symphony, and over the next several years amplified its budget, raised players' salaries and stretched its repertoire to include more American music. He "built it into a virtuoso band more than able to hold its own in any international company," Gramophone magazine wrote in 2001.
1 comment:
Rest in Peace.
Jimmy and I go all the way back to the Philadelphia All -City High School Orchestra. Jimmy was a very talented percussionist. We played in many community orchestras.
While Jimmy was at the University of Pennsylvania, I hooked him up with Gunther Schuller for a concert of music that Gunther had recorded. I think that this is when Jimmy's gift became evident to the world.
Wilmer
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