Hans Lange

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Hans Lange (* February 17th, 1884 in Istanbul; † August 13th, 1960 in Albuquerque) was a German-American conductor and musician. He was a son of Paul Lange, who had been a lecturer for music at the American College for Girls in Istanbul in the 1890s, and later was appointed the Sultan's director of music.

Lange was educated in different European cities, for example in Prague. After assignments in different German cities, for example in Bielefeld, he entered the United States in 1925 with a German orchestra to give concerts in different states. The orchestra was dissolved during the tour, and Lange had to re-start his career. In the 1930s he worked at the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, where he was assistant of Arturo Toscanini, and rehearsed almost all his performances. But at that time he also worked on his own as a conductor, there are for example Wagner recordings with the famous soprano Kirsten Flagstad.

1936-1943 he worked as Associate Conductor and later became Conductor (1943-46) of Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Because he had not taken up US citizenship during the war, his contract with CSO was not extended in 1946. In 1950 he started to work with the Albuquerque Civic Symphony, which he transformed from an amateur ensemble into what is today known as New Mexico Symphony Orchestra and one of the leading professional orchestras in the United States.