John Malveaux: Maestro Henry J. Lewis, born October 16, 1932, was one of the most gifted conductors to ever stand on a podium and hold a baton.

Henry Jay Lewis

John Malveaux of www.MusicUNTOLD.com writes:

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, Conductor Who Broke Racial Barriers of U.S. Orchestras, Is Dead at 63

By ROBERT D. McFADDEN

Published: January 29, 1996

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.