Stephen Simon

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Stephen Anthony Simon (born May 5, 1937 in New York City , † January 20, 2013 ibid) was an American conductor , music producer and founder of several music ensembles in Washington and New York.

Life

Simon studied at Oberlin College , Ohio and Yale University in New Haven . He was then director of the Handel Society of New York from 1970 to 1974 . In this capacity he first performed several works by Georg Friedrich Handel in New York . At the same time he was conductor of the Handel Festival Orchestra of New York at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

From 1976 on he was director of the Washington Chamber Symphony , the former chamber orchestra at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC , for over 25 years .

He saw the most important concern in his artistic career to introduce children to classical music and to inspire them. He organized the Stories in Music concert series for children and young people, in which a particular composer or an instrument was presented in detail at each concert with a lot of cheerfulness and fun. Because of his insightful explanations during these concerts about the “magic” effects of music and instruments, Stephen Simon was also called Magic Maestro by his young audience . Under this name he later built up a music publishing house that produced numerous CDs of classical music for children, which were created in collaboration with the London Philharmonic Orchestra .

In 2004 he founded the Simon Sinfonietta Chamber Orchestra , which regularly held benefit concerts at the Falmouth Academy in Falmouth / Massachusetts . Another ensemble followed in 2010 with the L'Orchestre des Portes Rouges , with whom he performed charity concerts in New York City. He was also director of the annual Summer of Music on the Hudson festival at the Lyndhurst estate in Tarrytown, New York .

Concert tours have taken him to Europe several times, in Germany in June 1990 he conducted the oratorio Messiah at the 39th Handel Festival in Halle (Saale) , the city of Georg Friedrich Handel.

Simon felt obliged to cultivate the music of classical masters throughout his artistic career and became a recognized expert in the productions and performances of works by Georg Friedrich Handel. In 1971 he received a Grammy nomination for his recording of the Handel oratorio Solomon with the orchestra of the Vienna Volksoper . With the British-Hungarian pianist Lili Kraus and the Vienna Festival Orchestra, he recorded all of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's piano concertos in 1965/66 .

Simon was married to Bonnie Ward Simon for the second time, with whom he has two sons, Basil and Sebastian. Four more children have emerged from a previous relationship. He died on January 20, 2013 in Manhattan at the age of 75.

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personal data
SURNAME Simon, Stephen
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Simon, Stephen Anthony (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American conductor and record producer
DATE OF BIRTH May 5, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City , New York , USA
DATE OF DEATH 20th January 2013
Place of death New York City , New York , USA