Colin Davis

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Sir Colin Rex Davis
Sir Colin Rex Davis
Born	September 25, 1927 Weybridge, Surrey, UK

Sir Colin Rex Davis, CH, CBE was born September 25, 1927 in Weybridge, Surrey, UK. Davis studied the clarinet at the Royal College of Music in London, where he was barred from taking conducting lessons owing to his lack of ability at the piano. Nonetheless, he formed the Kalmar Orchestra with fellow students, and often conducted it.

In 1952, Davis worked at the Royal Festival Hall, and in the late 1950s conducted the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. He first found wide acclaim when he stood in for an ill Otto Klemperer in a performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera, Don Giovanni, at the Royal Festival Hall in 1959. A year later, he stood in for Thomas Beecham in similar circumstances in Mozart's The Magic Flute at Glyndebourne .

In the 1960s he worked at Sadler's Wells Opera and the London Symphony Orchestra. He also served as Chief Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. In 1971 he succeeded Georg Solti as principal conductor at the Royal Opera House, where he had given occasional performances before, remaining there until 1986. He became noted for championing the operas of Michael Tippett, giving the premieres of his works The Knot Garden (1970), and The Ice Break (1977). In 1977 he became the first English conductor to appear at the Bayreuth Festival (dedicated to the works of Richard Wagner) where he conducted Tannhäuser.

Davis received a knighthood in 1980. He was also Principal Guest Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra for several years in the 1970s and early 1980s. He subsequently worked at the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra before being appointed principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra in 1995. He will conclude his tenure as the LSO's Principal Conductor on December 31, 2006, and become President of the LSO on January 1, 2007.

Aside from his championing of Tippett and his interpretations of Mozart, Davis is particularly closely associated with the music of Hector Berlioz, (giving many performances of his operas and orchestral works), Benjamin Britten, and Jean Sibelius. He has recorded all of the major works of Berlioz and many of the works of Tippett, as well as the complete piano concertos of Ludwig van Beethoven with Claudio Arrau.

He is International Chair of Orchestral Studies at the Royal Academy of Music, London.

[edit] Personal Life

His father, Reginald, was a soldier during World War I. His mother, Lillian, played the piano. He had two brothers, Norman and Howard and one sister, Yvonne. Howard worked as a clerk at the Bank of England, and died in World War II. Norman became a teacher of classics and died in the 1960's. Yvonne is retired from teaching.

In 1949, Davis married the soprano April Cantelo. They had two children, Suzanne and Christopher. Their marriage ended in 1964, and in that same year, Davis married the young Iranian woman who had been the family au pair, Ashraf Naini (known by her nickname "Shamsi"). To satisfy both the Iranian and British authorities, the couple were married three times, once in Iran and twice in the UK, in the Iranian Embassy as well as in a regular UK civil ceremony. They have five children, Kurosh (born 1966), Farhad (born 1967), Kavus (born 1968), Sheida (born 1977), and Yalda (born 1979).^[1].

[edit] Trivia

Davis is an avid knitter and likes to smoke pipes. He was 1996 Pipe Smoker of the Year.

[edit] References

Preceded by Antal Doráti	Chief Conductor, BBC Symphony Orchestra 1967–1971	Succeeded by Pierre Boulez
Preceded by Georg Solti	Music Director, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden 1971–1987	Succeeded by Bernard Haitink
Preceded by Rafael Kubelík	Chief Conductor, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra 1983–1993	Succeeded by Lorin Maazel
Preceded by Michael Tilson Thomas	Principal Conductor, London Symphony Orchestra 1995–2006	Succeeded by Valery Gergiev (designate)