Henry Jay Lewis
In my opinion, one of the highest achievers but conspicuously neglected
and uncelebrated in classical music is Conductor Henry Lewis. I am
confounded by the absence of institutional recognition of his global
achievements even by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, University
of Southern California, KUSC Classical Radio, or the Los Angeles Chamber
Orchestra. Maestro Henry J. Lewis was born on October 16, 1932, let us pause to remember and recognize one of the most gifted conductors to ever stand on a podium and hold a baton.
John Malveaux
The New York Times
Henry Lewis, who broke racial barriers in the music world as the
first black conductor and music director of a major American orchestra,
the New Jersey Symphony, and as the first black to conduct at the
Metropolitan Opera in New York, died on Friday at his home in Manhattan.
He was 63.
The cause was a heart attack, his former wife, the mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne, said.
Though
suffering from lung cancer in recent years, he continued to serve as
music director of the Opera-Music Theater Institute of New Jersey and of
the Netherlands Radio Orchestra, and was a frequent guest conductor for
opera companies and symphony orchestras in Europe and America.
Musically
brilliant and a commanding figure with the baton, Mr. Lewis since the
1960's had conducted nearly every major American orchestra -- the
Chicago Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Boston Symphony, the New
York Philharmonic -- as well as orchestras and opera companies in Milan,
London, Paris, Tokyo, Copenhagen and dozens of other music capitals.
In a 47-year career filled with landmark events, Mr. Lewis, whom some
critics likened to Jackie Robinson, became the first black
instrumentalist with a major American orchestra as a youth in 1948, the
first black to conduct a world-class orchestra, in 1960; the first black
to become music director of a major orchestra, in 1968, and the first
black to conduct at the Metropolitan Opera, in 1972.
Mr. Lewis was
only 16 when he joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Twelve years
later, he made his conducting debut with that orchestra. He then founded
the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and was engaged as a guest conductor
by top orchestras across the country.
On the strength of his
rapidly growing reputation, Mr. Lewis was selected in 1968, over 160
other candidates and at the musically young age of 36, to become the
conductor and music director of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. It
was a landmark event in music, for few blacks had even made it into the
orchestra pit, let alone onto the podium. It made national headlines.
Over
the next eight years, Mr. Lewis built the orchestra from what critics
called an ensemble of "avocational" musicians with a $75,000 budget and a
season of 22 concerts, into a first-class orchestra with a $1.5 million
budget, a 100-concert season and a glow of prestige that took it to
Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center in Washington and other famed halls.
No comments:
Post a Comment