The Ditson Conductor's Award, established in 1945, is the oldest award honoring
conductors for their commitment to the performance of
American music. The US$5,000 purse is endowed by the
Alice M. Ditson Fund at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, increased in 1999 from US$1,000.
The Ditson Conductor's Award was established five years after the 30 April 1940 death of Alice M. Ditson, widow of music publisher Charles Healy Ditson and daughter-in-law of
Oliver Ditson
Oliver Ditson (October 20, 1811 – December 21, 1888) was an American businessman and founder of Oliver Ditson and Company, one of the major music publishing houses of the late 19th century.
Early life and career
Oliver Ditson was born in Bos ...
, founder of the publishing house that bore his name. Her will bequested $400,000 (equivalent to $ million in ) to Columbia University was for "the encouragement and aide of musicians."
From this was born fellowships, public hearings, publication of the work of talented musicians and the Ditson Conductor's Award.
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Ditson Conductor's Award recipients
*1945 Howard Hanson
Howard Harold Hanson (October 28, 1896 – February 26, 1981)''The New York Times'' – Obituaries. Harold C. Schonberg. February 28, 1981 p. 1011/ref> was an American composer, conductor, educator, music theorist, and champion of American class ...
*1946 Léon Barzin
Léon Eugene Barzin (November 27, 1900April 19, 1999) was a Belgian-born American conductor and founder of the National Orchestral Association (NOA), the oldest surviving training orchestra in the United States. Barzin was also the founding mu ...
*1947 Alfred Wallenstein
Alfred Wallenstein (October 7, 1898 – February 8, 1983) was an American cellist and conductor. A successful solo and orchestral cellist in his early life, Wallenstein took up conducting in the 1930s and served as music director of the Los An ...
*1948 Dean Dixon
Charles Dean Dixon (January 10, 1915November 3, 1976) was an American conductor.
Career
Dixon was born in the upper-Manhattan neighborhood of Harlem in New York City to parents who had earlier migrated from the Caribbean. He studied conducting ...
*1949 Thor Johnson
Thor Martin Johnson (June 10, 1913 – January 16, 1975) was an American conductor. He was born in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin. He studied at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was president of the Alpha Rho chapter of Ph ...
*1950 Izler Solomon
Izler Solomon (January 11, 1910 – December 6, 1987) was an American orchestra conductor, active mostly in the Midwest.
Career
Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Izler Solomon's first position as music director was
from 1936 to 1941 with the Illinoi ...
*1951 Robert Whitney
*1952 Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Anthony Stokowski (18 April 1882 – 13 September 1977) was a British conductor. One of the leading conductors of the early and mid-20th century, he is best known for his long association with the Philadelphia Orchestra and his appeara ...
*1953 Walter Hendl
Walter Hendl (January 12, 1917April 10, 2007) was an American conductor, composer and pianist.
Biography
Hendl was born in West New York, New Jersey, and later went on to study with Fritz Reiner at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia ...
*1954 David Broekman
*1955 Robert Shaw
*1956 Victor Alessandro
Victor Nicholas Alessandro (November 27, 1915 – November 27, 1976) was an American orchestral conductor.
Conducting career
In 1938, at age 22, he became conductor of the Oklahoma City Symphony Orchestra, an organization that he led from a WPA ...
*1957 Howard Mitchell
Howard Mitchell (11 March 1911 in Lyons, Nebraska – 22 June 1988 in Ormond Beach, Florida) was an American cellist and conductor. He was principal conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra from 1949 to 1969.
According to music critic ...
*1958 Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein ( ; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was the first America ...
*1959 Julius Rudel
Julius Rudel (6 March 1921 – 26 June 2014) was an Austrian-born American opera and orchestra conductor. He was born in Vienna and was a student at the city's Academy of Music. He emigrated to the United States at the age of 17 in 1938 after th ...
*1960 Richard Bales
*1961 Richard Franko Goldman Richard Franko Goldman (December 7, 1910 – January 19, 1980)
was a conductor, educator, author, music critic, and composer.
Born Richard Henry Maibrunn Goldman (Maibrunn being his mother's family name), he adopted the same middle name as his ...
*1962 Guy Fraser Harrison
*1963 Milton Katims
*1964 Emerson Buckley
Emerson Buckley (14 April 1916 – 17 November 1989) was an American orchestra conductor.
Biography
Buckley was born in New York City. After high school, he attended Columbia University, graduating in 1936. He began his conducting career that sam ...
*1965 Jacob Avshalomov
Jacob Avshalomov (March 28, 1919 – April 25, 2013) was a composer and conductor.
Early life and education
Jacob Avshalomov was born on March 28, 1919, in Tsingtao, China. Note: Profile by David Campbell. His father was Aaron Avshalomov, the ...
*1966 William Strickland
*1967 Igor Buketoff
Igor Konstantin Buketoff (29 May 19157 September 2001) was an American conductor, arranger and teacher. He had a special affinity with Russian music and with Sergei Rachmaninoff in particular. He also strongly promoted British contemporary music ...
*1968 Alan Carter
*1969 Frederick Fennell
Frederick Fennell (July 2, 1914 – December 7, 2004) was an internationally recognized conductor and one of the primary figures in promoting the Eastman Wind Ensemble as a performing group. He was also influential as a band pedagogue, and grea ...
*1970 Gunther Schuller
Gunther Alexander Schuller (November 22, 1925June 21, 2015) was an American composer, conductor, horn player, author, historian, educator, publisher, and jazz musician.
Biography and works
Early years
Schuller was born in Queens, New York City, ...
*1971 Maurice Abravanel
Maurice Abravanel (January 6, 1903 – September 22, 1993) was an American classical music conductor. He is remembered as the conductor of the Utah Symphony Orchestra for over 30 years.
Life
Abravanel was born in Salonika, Rumelia Eyalet, Ottom ...
*1972 Louis Lane
Louis Gardner Lane (December 25, 1923 – February 15, 2016) was an American conductor. He was born in Eagle Pass, Texas. He studied composition with Kent Kennan at the University of Texas at Austin where he earned his bachelor's in music degree i ...
*1973 Stanisław Skrowaczewski
Stanislaw Pawel Stefan Jan Sebastian Skrowaczewski (; October 3, 1923 – February 21, 2017) was a Polish-American classical conductor and composer.
Biography
Skrowaczewski was born in Lwów, Second Polish Republic (now Lviv, Ukraine). His pa ...
*1974 Lukas Foss
Lukas Foss (August 15, 1922 – February 1, 2009) was a German-American composer, pianist, and conductor.
Career
Born Lukas Fuchs in Berlin, Germany in 1922, Foss was soon recognized as a child prodigy. He began piano and theory lessons with J ...
*1975 Antal Doráti
Antal Doráti (, , ; 9 April 1906 – 13 November 1988) was a Hungarian-born conductor and composer who became a naturalized American citizen in 1943.
Biography
Antal Doráti was born in Budapest, where his father Alexander Doráti was a vi ...
*1976 José Serebrier
José Serebrier (born 3 December 1938) is a Uruguayan conductor and composer. He is one of the most recorded conductors of his generation.
Early life
Serebrier was born in Montevideo to Russian and Polish parents of Jewish extraction. He fi ...
*1977 Eugene Ormandy
Eugene Ormandy (born Jenő Blau; November 18, 1899 – March 12, 1985) was a Hungarian-born American conductor and violinist, best known for his association with the Philadelphia Orchestra, as its music director. His 44-year association wit ...
*1978 Gregg Smith Gregg may refer to:
Places
* Gregg, California, United States, an unincorporated community
* Gregg, Missouri, United States, an unincorporated community
* Gregg County, Texas, United States
* Gregg River, Alberta, Canada
* Gregg Seamount, Atlantic ...
*1979 Sergiu Comissiona
Sergiu Comissiona (June 16, 1928 – March 5, 2005) was a Romanian-Israelis, Israeli-Americans, American Conducting, conductor and violinist.
Biography
Early life
Born in Bucharest, Romania in a Jewish family, he began violin studies at the ag ...
*1980 James A. Dixon
*1981 Michael Charry
*1982 Russell Patterson
*1983 Julius Hegyi
*1984 Leonard Slatkin
Leonard Edward Slatkin (born September 1, 1944) is an American conductor, author and composer.
Early life and education
Slatkin was born in Los Angeles to a Jewish musical family that came from areas of the Russian Empire now in Ukraine. His fat ...
*1985 Jorge Mester
Jorge Mester (born April 10, 1935, Mexico City) is a Mexican conductor of Hungarian ancestry.
He has served as the artistic director for the Orquesta Filarmónica de Boca del Río, Veracruz, since it was founded in 2014.
Biography
He studied condu ...
*1986 Efrain Guigui
Efrain Guigui (September 19, 1925 – June 18, 2007) was a US-based Panamanian born clarinetist and conductor.
Early life
Guigui was born on September 19, 1925 in Panama. He grew up in Argentina, where he attended the Student Music Conservator ...
*1987 Dennis Russell Davies
Dennis Russell Davies (born April 16, 1944 in Toledo, Ohio) is an American conductor and pianist, He is currently the music director and chief conductor of the Brno Philharmonic.
Biography
Davies studied piano and conducting at the Juilliard Sch ...
*1988 Lawrence Leighton Smith Lawrence Leighton Smith (April 8, 1936 - October 25, 2013), was an American conductor and pianist.
Smith was born in Portland, Oregon. He studied piano with Ariel Rubstein in Portland and Leonard Shure in New York. He earned bachelor's degrees fr ...
*1989 Gerard Schwarz
Gerard Schwarz (born August 19, 1947), also known as Gerry Schwarz or Jerry Schwarz, is an American symphony conductor and trumpeter. As of 2019, Schwarz serves as the Artistic and Music Director of Palm Beach Symphony and the Director of Orche ...
*1990 Mstislav Rostropovich
Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich, (27 March 192727 April 2007) was a Russian cellist and conductor. He is considered by many to be the greatest cellist of the 20th century. In addition to his interpretations and technique, he was wel ...
*1991 Christopher Keene
Christopher Keene (December 21, 1946 – October 8, 1995) was an American conductor.
Early life and education
Keene was born in 1946 in Berkeley, California, the son of Yvonne (née Cyr) and Jim Keene. His mother was of Acadian, German, and Sco ...
*1992 Herbert Blomstedt
Herbert Thorson Blomstedt (; born 11 July 1927) is a Swedish conductor.
Herbert Blomstedt was born in Massachusetts. Two years after his birth, his Swedish parents moved the family back to their country of origin. He studied at the Stockholm Ro ...
*1993 Michael Tilson Thomas
Michael Tilson Thomas (born December 21, 1944) is an American conductor, pianist and composer. He is Artistic Director Laureate of the New World Symphony, an American orchestral academy based in Miami Beach, Florida, Music Director Laureate of ...
*1994 Gerhard Samuel
*1995 Gustav Meier
Gustav, Gustaf or Gustave may refer to:
*Gustav (name), a male given name of Old Swedish origin
Art, entertainment, and media
* ''Primeval'' (film), a 2007 American horror film
* ''Gustav'' (film series), a Hungarian series of animated short cart ...
*1996 James Bolle
*1997 David Zinman
David Zinman (born July 9, 1936, in Brooklyn, NY) is an American conductor and violinist.
Education
After violin studies at Oberlin Conservatory, Zinman studied theory and composition at the University of Minnesota, earning his M.A. in 1963. He ...
*1998 JoAnn Falletta
JoAnn Falletta (born February 27, 1954 in Queens, New York) is an American conductor.
Biography
Falletta was raised in the borough of Queens in an Italian-American household. She was educated at the Mannes College of Music and The Juilliard Sch ...
*1999 Christoph von Dohnányi
Christoph von Dohnányi (; born 8 September 1929) is a German conducting, conductor.
Biography
Youth and World War II
Dohnányi was born in Berlin, Germany to Hans von Dohnanyi, a German jurist of Hungarian ancestry, and Christine von Dohnanyi ...
*2000 James DePreist
James Anderson DePreist (November 21, 1936 – February 8, 2013) was an American conductor. DePreist was one of the first African-American conductors on the world stage. He was the director emeritus of conducting and orchestral studies at T ...
*2001 Joel Sachs
*2002 Edwin London
*2003 David Alan Miller
David Alan Miller (born 1961) is a multi-Grammy Award-winning American symphony orchestra conductor, and since 1992, music director of the Albany Symphony Orchestra. Miller served as assistant and associate conductor of the Los Angeles Philha ...
*2004 Donald Portnoy
*2005 David Hoose
*2006 David Robertson
*2007 Gil Rose Gil Rose is the founder and conductor of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), founder and General-Artistic Director of Odyssey Opera, Artistic Director of Monadnock Music Festival, Professor of Practice at Northeastern University, and Execu ...
*2008 Robert Spano
Robert Spano ( ; born 7 May 1961, Conneaut, Ohio) is an American conductorDavidson, Justin. "CLASSICAL MUSIC: Looking for Magic: Mixing visuals and language into a performance is just part of conductor Robert Spano's pursuit of orchestral risk" ...
*2009 James Levine
James Lawrence Levine (; June 23, 1943 – March 9, 2021) was an American conductor and pianist. He was music director of the Metropolitan Opera from 1976 to 2016. He was terminated from all his positions and affiliations with the Met on March 1 ...
*2010 Osmo Vänskä
Osmo Antero Vänskä (born 28 February 1953) is a Finnish conductor, clarinetist, and composer.
Biography
Vänskä started his musical career as an orchestral clarinetist with the Turku Philharmonic (1971–76). He then became the principal clar ...
*2011 Alan Gilbert
*2012 George Manahan
*2013 Jeffrey Milarsky
*2014 Harold Rosenbaum
Harold Rosenbaum (born January 24, 1950) is an American conductor and musician. He is the artistic director and conductor of the New York Virtuoso Singers and the Canticum Novum Singers. The New York Virtuoso Singers appear on 48 albums on lab ...
*2015 John Mauceri
John Francis Mauceri (born September 12, 1945) is an American conductor, producer, educator and writer. Since making his professional conducting debut almost half a century ago, he has appeared with most of the world's great orchestras, guest-con ...
*2016 Cliff Colnot
*2017 Marin Alsop
Marin Alsop ( mɛər.ɪn ˈæːl.sɑːp born October 16, 1956) is an American conductor, the first woman to win the Koussevitzky Prize for conducting and the first conductor to be awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. She is music director laureate ...
*2018 Oliver Knussen
Stuart Oliver Knussen (12 June 1952 – 8 July 2018) was a British composer and conductor.
Early life
Oliver Knussen was born in Glasgow, Scotland. His father, Stuart Knussen, was principal double bass of the London Symphony Orchestra, and a ...
*2019 Bradley Lubman
*2020 Steven Schick
*2021 John Adams
John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Befor ...
*2022 Delta David Gier
References
{{reflist
External links
The Alice M. Ditson Fund , Conductors Award
(official winners list)
American music awards
Awards established in 1945
Awards and prizes of Columbia University