Rae Jenkins , born Henry Horatio Jenkins
(19 April 1903
– 29 March 1985
) was a Welsh violinist and later
conductor
Conductor or conduction may refer to:
Music
* Conductor (music), a person who leads a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra.
* ''Conductor'' (album), an album by indie rock band The Comas
* Conduction, a type of structured free improvisation ...
of
light music, notably with the
BBC Midland Light Orchestra (1942–1946),
the BBC Variety Orchestra
(from 1946), and as principal conductor of the
BBC Welsh Orchestra
The BBC National Orchestra of Wales (BBC NOW) ( cy, Cerddorfa Genedlaethol Gymreig y BBC) is a Welsh symphony orchestra and one of the BBC's five professional radio orchestras. The BBC NOW is the only professional symphony orchestra organisation ...
(1950–1965).
In 1955
Hubert Clifford
__NOTOC__
Hubert John Clifford (31 May 1904 – 4 September 1959) was an Australian-born British composer, conductor and musical director for films. A native of Bairnsdale in rural Victoria, he studied chemistry before taking up music at the Mel ...
, Head of Light Music at the BBC, called Jenkins "the most gifted and experienced conductor of light music in the country".
Jenkins was born at
Ammanford
Ammanford ( cy, Rhydaman) is a town and community in Carmarthenshire, Wales, with a population of 5,411 at the 2011 census. It is a former coal mining town. The built-up area had a population of 7,945 with the wider urban area even bigger.
Acco ...
in 1903,
the son of a
coal miner
Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...
.
Given a violin when four years old, he was
first violin
The concertmaster (from the German ''Konzertmeister''), first chair (U.S.) or leader (U.K.) is the principal first violin player in an orchestra (or clarinet in a concert band). After the conductor, the concertmaster is the second-most signific ...
in his local theatre orchestra by the age of eleven.
However at the age of 14 he was sent down the coal mines as a pit boy.
[Palmer, Russell. ''British Music'' (1948), pp. 137-8] His parents eventually found the means to send him to the