George Crum (conductor)

George Crum (born October 26, 1926 in Providence / Rhode Island , USA; † September 8, 2007 in Newmarket / Ontario ) was a Canadian conductor and pianist.

Crum came to Canada at the age of three and attended Trinity College School in Port Hope, where he took piano lessons from 1938 to 1942 with Edmund Cohu . He continued his education with Elsie Bennett and Mona Bates and made his debut as a pianist in the Arts and Letters Club of Toronto in 1943 . At the city's conservatory he studied music theory and instrumentation with Barbara Pentland and Ettore Mazzoleni, as well as accompaniment and conducting with Herman Geiger-Torel and Nicholas Goldschmidt , whose assistant he was.

He was director of the choir of the Royal Conservatory Opera School , with which he made his conducting debut in 1948, and from 1948 to 1951 conductor of the school's company. During the 1950s he worked as a choirmaster for the CBC . In 1951 he became chief conductor and musical director of the National Ballet of Canada through Celia Franca . He held the position until 1984, during which time he directed performances such as Romeo and Juliet (1966, awarded the Prix René Barthélemy ) and Cinderella and The Sleeping Beauty , which received an Emmy Award in 1970 and 1973 , respectively. In 1972 he received the Celia Award for his services to the Canadian ballet .

After 1984 he continued to lead the National Ballet occasionally as a guest conductor, for example on the occasion of the celebration of Karen Kain's 20th anniversary on stage in 1988, Veronica Tennant's farewell performance in Romeo and Juliet in 1989 and at the company's 40th anniversary gala in 1990.

In addition, he led opera performances as a guest conductor at the CBC (including Don Giovanni as the first complete opera broadcast in North America in 1952), was répétiteur at the Salzburg Festival under Wilhelm Furtwängler in 1952 and conducted the opening of the National Arts Center in 1969 . In 1980, he took part in the ceremonies for the inauguration of President Miguel de la Madrid in Mexico as the Canadian cultural ambassador . He also worked as a conductor at New York's Joffrey Ballet and Mexico City's Ballet Teatro , wrote arrangements of piano works by Chopin , Schumann and Beethoven and his own compositions. Since 1951 he was married to the soprano Patricia Snell .

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• George Crum ( English, French ) In: Encyclopedia of Music in Canada . published by The Canadian Encyclopedia .
• CBC News, Sep 10, 2007: Longtime National Ballet music director George Crum dies at 80