Boyd Neel
Louis Boyd Neel (born July 19, 1905 in Blackheath , London , † September 30, 1981 in Toronto ) was a Canadian conductor and music teacher of English origin.
Neel attended Osborne Naval College . Shortly after joining the Royal Navy, there was a drastic reduction in the British armed forces, and Neel began studying medicine at Caius College Cambridge, specializing in surgery, from which he graduated in 1930 with a master's degree. He then became a surgeon at London's Saint George's Hospital and a doctor at King Edward VII's Hospital . At the same time he began studying music theory and orchestration at the Guildhall School of Music .
From seventeen musicians from the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music (including the violinist Frederick Grinke ) he founded the Boyd Neel London String Orchestra (later Boyd Neel Orchestra ) in 1932 , with which he made his debut in 1933 at London's Aeolian Hall . At the end of the year the BBC invited him and the orchestra to record, and when Decca Records offered him a contract, he gave up his work as a doctor to devote himself entirely to music.
The orchestra played a. a. the first complete recording of Georg Friedrich Handel's Concerti grossi and performed works such as Ralph Vaughan Williams ' Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis and Benjamin Britten's Simple Symphony and (at the Salzburg Festival 1937) Britten's Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge on concert tours in Europe . Britten composed his Prelude and Fugue for eighteen strings on the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Boyd Neel Orchestra .
Before and after the Second World War, Neel led a. a. the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra , the London Philharmonic Orchestra , the London Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Orchestra . During the Second World War he was a medical officer in the Royal Navy and also gave several hundred concerts in front of troops with the Sadler's Wells Orchestra . After the war he worked as a conductor at Sadler's Wells Opera and for the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company . With his orchestra he went on concert tours through Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA from 1947, which he reported on in his book The Story of an Orchestra (1950).
From 1953 to 1971 Neel was Dean of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. In 1954 he founded the Hart House Orchestra , which he also directed until 1971. With the orchestra he gave eight concerts at the Stratford Festival in 1955 with the soloists Glenn Gould , Lois Marshall and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf . Between 1953 and 1964 he conducted the CBC Symphony Orchestra several times , and in 1955 he made his first appearance with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra .
From 1969 to the late 1970s, Neel taught at the Student Conductors' Workshop at the University of Toronto , and in 1972 he became the first conductor of the Mississauga Symphony Orchestra , to which he remained as an emeritus after 1978. After retiring, he wrote the autobiography My Orchestras and Other Adventures .
Neel was named Commander of the British Empire in 1953 . In 1954 he became an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music and in 1972 an officer of the Order of Canada . The University of Toronto awarded him an honorary doctorate in music in 1979. He had been a Canadian citizen since 1961.
swell
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Neel, Boyd |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Neel, Louis Boyd |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British-Canadian conductor and music teacher |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 19, 1905 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Blackheath |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 30, 1981 |
| Place of death | Toronto |