Vernon Handley

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Dr Vernon Handley, CBE (Born November 11, 1930, Enfield, London) is a British conductor. He was a pupil of Sir Adrian Boult ([1]).

He was born of Welsh parents, into a musical family. While in school he watched the BBC Symphony Orchestra in its studio in Maida Vale where by his own account he learned some of his conducting technique by watching Boult. Later the two corresponded in the early 1950s and met around 1958, after Handley's term in the Armed Forces and attendance at Balliol College, Oxford. During their first meeting he "was put through the worst two hours of counterpoint and harmony that I’ve ever faced" and was then asked how he would conduct a page of a score put in front of him, a problem he solved. (The score, Arnold Bax's third symphony, was also in the program of the first concert Handley gave in London. The orchestra was the symphony of Morley College.)

He was appointed the musical director in 1962 in Guildford, and in twenty-one years there established the Guildford Philharmonic Orchestra, with whom he programmed much of Bax's music and made the first recording of the composer's fourth symphony. He also directed the Tonbridge Philharmonic orchestra. In 1983 he was appointed associate conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. He has also served as conductor of the Amsterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and had assistant conductorships elsewhere, is conductor emeritus of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and has conducted a number of others in concert, for broadcast and for recording.

He has premiered and recorded premiere performances of works by British composers, including a series on Hyperion Records of the symphonies of Robert Simpson, most of which are premieres; Simpson dedicated his Symphony no. 10 to Handley. He has contributed a foreword to Alan Poulton's Dictionary-Catalog of Modern British Composers (Greenwood Press) and to a book on Boult. He has also recorded Sir Arnold Bax's symphonies for Chandos Records as well as discs of other orchestral works. Handley has also recorded many works by Sir Malcolm Arnold for Conifer Records which have recently been reissued in the UK by Decca Records

Handley ('Tod' to his friends) has been the recipient of numerous awards, most recently The Gramophone Magazine's Special Achievement Award in 2003.

He was appointed CBE in 2004.