Myer Fredman (29 January 1932 – 4 July 2014) was a
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
-
Australian
conductor.
He studied at
Dartington Hall
Dartington Hall in Dartington, near Totnes, Devon, England, is an historic house and country estate of dating from medieval times. The group of late 14th century buildings are Grade I listed; described in Pevsner's Buildings of England as "on ...
and in London with
Peter Gellhorn Peter Gellhorn (born Hans Fritz Gellhorn, October 24, 1912 – February 13, 2004) was a German conductor, composer, pianist and teacher who settled in London and made a career in Britain that lasted unbroken until his death.
Life
Gellhorn, the ...
,
Vilém Tauský Vilém Tauský CBE (20 July 1910, Přerov, Moravia – 16 March 2004, London) was a Czech conductor and composer who, from the advent of the Second World War, lived and worked in the UK, one of a significant group of émigré composers and musici ...
, Sir
Adrian Boult, and was assistant conductor to
Otto Klemperer
Otto Nossan Klemperer (14 May 18856 July 1973) was a 20th-century conductor and composer, originally based in Germany, and then the US, Hungary and finally Britain. His early career was in opera houses, but he was later better known as a concer ...
,
Vittorio Gui
Vittorio Gui (14 September 188516 October 1975) was an Italian conductor, composer, musicologist and critic.
Gui was born in Rome in 1885. He graduated in humanities at the University of Rome and also studied composition at the Accademia Naziona ...
, Sir
John Pritchard and Sir
Charles Mackerras
Mackerras in 2005
Sir Alan Charles MacLaurin Mackerras (; 1925 2010) was an Australian conductor. He was an authority on the operas of Janáček and Mozart, and the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan. He was long associated with the Engli ...
.
[
He was conductor at the ]Glyndebourne Festival
Glyndebourne Festival Opera is an annual opera festival held at Glyndebourne, an English country house near Lewes, in East Sussex, England.
History
Under the supervision of the Christie family, the festival has been held annually since 1934, e ...
1963–74. He was involved in the creation of Glyndebourne Touring Opera, of which he was musical director for seven years 1968-74. After moving to Australia he became musical director of the State Opera of South Australia
State Opera South Australia (SOSA) is a professional opera company in Adelaide, South Australia, established in 1976.
History
State Opera South Australia was established in 1976 as a statutory corporation under the ''State Opera of South Aust ...
1974–80, and conductor and artistic associate with Opera Australia
Opera Australia is the principal opera company in Australia. Based in Sydney, its performance season at the Sydney Opera House accompanied by the Opera Australia Orchestra runs for approximately eight months of the year, with the remainder ...
1983–98.[Arthur Jacobs and Noël Goodwin. 'Fredman, Myer', in ''Grove Music Online'' (1992, published online 2001)]
Myer Fredman conducted the Australian premieres of Sir Michael Tippett
Sir Michael Kemp Tippett (2 January 1905 – 8 January 1998) was an English composer who rose to prominence during and immediately after the Second World War. In his lifetime he was sometimes ranked with his contemporary Benjamin Britten ...
's opera ''The Midsummer Marriage
''The Midsummer Marriage'' is an opera in three acts, with music and libretto by Michael Tippett. The work's first performance was at Covent Garden, on 27 January 1955, conducted by John Pritchard. The reception of the opera was controversial, o ...
'' (in the presence of the composer), and Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other ...
's opera ''Death in Venice
''Death in Venice ''(German: ''Der Tod in Venedig'') is a novella by German author Thomas Mann, published in 1912. It presents an ennobled writer who visits Venice and is liberated, uplifted, and then increasingly obsessed by the sight of a Poli ...
'', at consecutive Adelaide Festivals.
His world-premiere recordings include Arnold Bax
Sir Arnold Edward Trevor Bax, (8 November 1883 – 3 October 1953) was an English composer, poet, and author. His prolific output includes songs, choral music, chamber pieces, and solo piano works, but he is best known for his orchestral musi ...
's 1st and 2nd symphonies and Havergal Brian
Havergal Brian (born William Brian; 29 January 187628 November 1972) was an English composer. He is best known for having composed 32 symphonies (an unusually high total for a 20th-century composer), most of them late in his life. His best-known ...
's 6th symphony, all with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and Brian's 16th symphony with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; and Peter Sculthorpe
Peter Joshua Sculthorpe (29 April 1929 – 8 August 2014) was an Australian composer. Much of his music resulted from an interest in the music of countries neighboring Australia as well as from the impulse to bring together aspects of Aborigin ...
's Piano Concerto and a television opera, ''Quiros''. His other recordings included the music of Britten, Delius, Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams, (; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over ...
, Respighi, Rubbra, Sir Eugene Goossens, Arthur Benjamin
Arthur Leslie Benjamin (18 September 1893, in Sydney – 10 April 1960, in London) was an Australian composer, pianist, conductor and teacher. He is best known as the composer of '' Jamaican Rumba'' (1938) and of the '' Storm Clouds Cantata'' ...
, Richard Meale
Richard Graham Meale, AM, MBE (24 August 193223 November 2009) was an Australian composer of instrumental works and operas.
Biography
Meale was born in Sydney. At the time the Meale family lived in Marrickville, an inner suburb of Sydney. Meale ...
, Robert Still, and Ross Edwards.
He also conducted the premieres of some other of Havergal Brian's symphonies, and he was a Vice-President of the Havergal Brian Society.
Myer Fredman orchestrated and arranged instrumental and operatic music by J. S. Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard wo ...
, John Dowland
John Dowland (c. 1563 – buried 20 February 1626) was an English Renaissance composer, lutenist, and singer. He is best known today for his melancholy songs such as "Come, heavy sleep", " Come again", "Flow my tears", " I saw my Lady weepe", ...
, Mozart, Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (29 November 1797 – 8 April 1848) was an Italian composer, best known for his almost 70 operas. Along with Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, he was a leading composer of the ''bel canto'' opera style duri ...
, Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most popu ...
, Puccini
Giacomo Puccini ( Lucca, 22 December 1858Bruxelles, 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for his operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he was descended from a long ...
and Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, (; 2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestr ...
.
He was the first person to write extensively of the role of the conductor in the operas of Mozart, in ''From Idomeneo to Die Zauberflote; A conductor's commentary''
The Italian Government awarded Myer Fredman the medal ''Per Servizio della Musica e Cultura Italiana''.
Fredman was a teacher to many musicians, including Kim Sutherland.
He moved to Hobart, Tasmania
)
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, image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates:
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, subdi ...
where he conducted and taught as Adjunct Professor at the University of Tasmania
The University of Tasmania (UTAS) is a public research university, primarily located in Tasmania, Australia. Founded in 1890, it is Australia's fourth oldest university. Christ College, one of the university's residential colleges, first prop ...
's Conservatorium of Music. He was also involved in creating The Tasmanian Discovery Orchestra.[ He died in Hobart on 4 July 2014, aged 82.Sounds like Sydney]
Retrieved 14 July 2014
References
External links
1932 births
2014 deaths
British male conductors (music)
Australian conductors (music)
20th-century Australian musicians
20th-century British conductors (music)
20th-century British male musicians
{{UK-conductor-stub