Willem van Otterloo

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Willem van Otterloo
Background information
Birth name	Jan Willem van Otterloo
Born	December 27, 1907(1907-12-27) Winterswijk, Netherlands
Died	July 27, 1978 (aged 70) Melbourne, Australia
Genre(s)	Classical
Occupation(s)	Conductor, pedagogue
Associated acts	Residentie Orchestra Sydney Symphony

Jan Willem van Otterloo (December 27, 1907 – July 27, 1978) was a Dutch conductor, cellist and composer.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Compositions 3 Discography 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Biography

Van Otterloo was born in Winterswijk, in The Netherlands, the son of William Frederik van Otterloo, a railway inspector, and his wife Anna Catharina Enderlé. He qualified to study medicine at the University of Utrecht but switched to studying cello and composition at the Amsterdam Conservatoire. While playing as a cellist in the Utrecht Stedelijk Orkest, he won a composition prize from the Concertgebouw Orchestra for his Suite No. 3, a work the premiere of which constituted Van Otterloo's conducting debut with that august orchestra in 1932. He held posts with the Utrecht Stedelijk Orkest, before being appointed chief conductor of the Residentie Orkest in The Hague (1949-1973). In 1967-68 he was chief conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and in 1971 he was appointed chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony. Particularly prized for his performances of newer music, he made recordings, mostly for Philips Records, with Residentie Orkest, Concertgebouworkest, Berliner Philharmoniker, Wiener Philharmoniker, Orchestre Lamoureux and the Sydney Symphony.

Van Otterloo was married and divorced four times in the Netherlands.^[1] He married Elisabeth ter Hoeve on August 1 1935 (divorce 1938). On April 22, 1941 he married Anette Jacoba Adriana Heukers, with whom in December of that year he had a son, Rogier van Otterloo (1941-1988) [1], who would become a well-known conductor in the Netherlands as well. Anette and he divorced in April 1943, but remarried April 28, 1944. They would have another son and two daughters, but divorced again on September 20, 1954. Ten days later he married Susanne Maria Anna Wildmann with whom he had another daughter. A month after his fourth divorce, he married Carola Gertie Ludewig (born 1945) on 12 August 1970 in Australia. He died in East St Kilda, Melbourne in 1978 from injuries suffered in an automobile accident. His body was flown to The Hague for cremation.

[edit] Compositions

• Suite (1938)
• Symphoniëtta for 16 Wind Instruments (1943)
• Serenade (1944)

[edit] Discography

• Willem Van Otterloo and Residentie Orkest: The Original Recordings 1950-1960. 13 CDs. Challenge Classics, CC 72142

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Willem van Otterloo at the Australian Dictionary of Biography

Preceded by Frits Schuurman

Principal Conductor, Residentie Orkest 1949–1973

Succeeded by Jean Martinon

v • d • e Sydney Symphony Orchestra Chief Conductors Eugene Goossens (1947) · Nikolai Malko (1957) · Dean Dixon (1964) · Moshe Atzmon (1967) · Willem van Otterloo (1971) · Louis Frémaux (1979) · Charles Mackerras (1982) · Zdeněk Mácal (1986) · Stuart Challender (1987) · Edo de Waart (1993) · Gianluigi Gelmetti (2004)