Rudolph Dunbar

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W. Rudolph Dunbar (born April 5, 1899 in British Guyana , † June 10, 1988 in London ) was a British jazz and entertainment musician of Guyanese origin ( clarinet , saxophone ), who later emerged as a conductor and composer in classical music . After training in Guyana and the West Indies and a stay in the USA, he made music in Europe and settled in London in 1931. He was the first African American to conduct the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 1942 and the Berlin Philharmonic in 1945 . He also worked as a journalist.

Live and act

Dunbar, who was born either in Nabacalis or near Georgetown, Guyana, received musical training in the British Guiana Military Band and in the Barbados Police Band. In 1919 he moved to New York, where he studied at the Institute of Musical Art . He played jazz in the Harlem Orchestra in 1924 and was friends with the orchestra's pianist, the composer William Grant Still . In 1924/25 he accompanied the show Dixie to Broadway in Will Vodery's Plantation Orchestra .

In 1925 Dunbar moved to Paris , where he first played in the Palm Beach Six . In 1926 he appeared in Rome with Benny Peyton's Jazz Kings , the following year with the Plantation Orchestra in England. Between 1927 and 1929 he studied journalism and music at the Sorbonne (with Philippe Gaubert (conducting), Paul Vidal (composition) and Louis Cahuzac (clarinet)). In 1928 he became a member of Thompson's Negro Orchestra , with whom he toured extensively in Europe. He came to London in 1930 with the Leon Abbey Orchestra . After further studies in Paris and Vienna (with Felix Weingartner ) he settled in London in 1931, where he founded a clarinet school.

In the next few years he led his own band, with which he performed in various hotels in London and went on tour. In 1940 he led a medium-sized orchestra, but then concentrated on his work as a composer and conductor. He also wrote columns for Melody Maker . In 1939 he published his textbook Treatise on the Clarinet (Boehm System) .

His ballet Dance of the Twenty-First Century , which he wrote for the Footlights Club at Cambridge University , was also performed in the United States (by NBC ) in 1938 . In 1940 and 1941 he appeared on the BBC . In 1942 he conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall . In September 1945 he conducted the Berliner Philharmoniker , with which he performed William Grant Still's Afro-American Symphony for Allied soldiers. In the same year, Dunbar conducted several French orchestras. In 1948 he conducted the Hollywood Bowl . In the 1960s he conducted several symphony orchestras in Poland and Russia.

journalism

Dunbar also worked as a journalist. Between 1932 and 1936 he worked as the London correspondent for the Associated Negro Press. As a war correspondent, he crossed the English Channel with the American 8th Army on D-Day .

archive

The Rudolph Dunbar Archive was created as early as 1975 as part of the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection at Yale University .

Fonts

  • Rudolph Dunbar: Treatise on the Clarinet (Boehm system) . JE Dallas, London 1939.

literature

  • J. Southern, W. Rudolph Dunbar: Pioneering Orchestra Conductor. The Black Perspective in Music 9 (2, 1981), pp. 193-225.
  • John Chilton , Who's Who in British Jazz London 2005; ISBN 978-0826472342 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Southern (W. Rudolph Dunbar: Pioneering Orchestra Conductor. The Black Perspective in Music 9, pp. 193-225) gives 1907 as the year of birth. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography confirms Black British Jazz , as does Jason Toynbee, Catherine Tackley, and Mark Doffman : Routes, Ownership and Performance (Ashgate 2014) 1899 as the year of birth
  2. ↑ a b Rudolph Dunbar profile ( Memento of August 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), British Jazz History, Jazz Services.
  3. ↑ a b c J. Southern W. Rudolph Dunbar: Pioneering Orchestra Conductor , The Black Perspective in Music 9 (2, 1981), pp. 193-225.
  4. ↑ Jason Toynbee, Catherine Tackley, Mark Doffman Black British Jazz: Routes, Ownership and Performance Ashgate 2014, p 39
  5. ↑ Rudolph Dunbar, a talented international clarinetist with many 'firsts', African American Registry ( Memento of March 14, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ a b Bob Shingleton, Berlin Philharmonic's first Black conductor , On An Overgrown Path, April 23, 2007.
  7. ^ JA Rogers, "Rudolph Dunbar," in World's Great Men of Color, Volume 2 (1947), Touchstone, 1996, p. 563.
  8. ↑ Dominique de Lerma, "Rudolph Dunbar, conductor - On Black Classical Music" , The Afro American , June 24, 1978th
personal data
SURNAME Dunbar, Rudolph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dunbar, W. Rudolph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British jazz and entertainment musician, later composer and conductor
DATE OF BIRTH April 5, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH British Guyana
DATE OF DEATH June 10, 1988
Place of death London