For the former Formula One driver, see Colin Davis (driver)

Sir Colin Rex Davis, CH, CBE (b. September 25, 1927), is a British Conductor. He was born 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 and often served as conductor of the Kalmar Orchestra with fellow students.

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^[1] 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 was Principal Guest Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1972 to 1984. He subsequently was Chief Conductor at the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1983 to 1993. In 1991, Davis was named 'Conductor Laureate' (Ehrendirigent) of the Staatskapelle Dresden, the first conductor in the orchestra's history to hold that title. In 1995, Davis began his tenure as Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) in 1995. From 1998-2003, he was Principal Guest Conductor of the New York Philharmonic. Davis concluded his tenure as the LSO's Principal Conductor on 31 December 2006, and became President of the LSO on 1 January 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.^[2][3] 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 and Franz Liszt with Claudio Arrau.

Davis received a knighthood in 1980. He is also International Chair of Orchestral Studies at the Royal Academy of Music, London.

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 four sisters. 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 1960s. Yvonne is retired from teaching. Colin Davis attended Christ's Hospital in Sussex before studying clarinet in London

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 “Shamsi” Naini. 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 (b. 1966), Farhad (b. 1967), Kavus (b. 1968), Sheida (b. 1977), and Yalda (born 1979).^[4]

References

Further reading

• Richard Morrison. "Monarch of all he’s survived", The Times, September 21, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-09-22. 

External links

Colin Davis at All Music Guide

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

•  • [ e] BBC Symphony Orchestra Chief Conductors
Adrian Boult (1930) • Malcolm Sargent (1950) • Rudolf Schwarz (1957) • Antal Dorti (1962) • Colin Davis (1967) • Pierre Boulez (1971) • Rudolf Kempe (1976) • Gennady Rozhdestvensky (1978) • John Pritchard (1982) • Andrew Davis (1989) • Leonard Slatkin (2000) • Jiř Bělohlvek (2006)

•  • [ e] London Symphony Orchestra Principal Conductors
Hans Richter (1904) • Edward Elgar (1911) • Arthur Nikisch (1912) • Thomas Beecham (1915) • Albert Coates (1919) • Willem Mengelberg (1930) • Hamilton Harty (1932) • Josef Krips (1951) • Pierre Monteux (1960) • Istvn Kertsz (1965) • Andr Previn (1968) • Claudio Abbado (1979) • Michael Tilson Thomas (1987) • Colin Davis (1995) • Valery Gergiev (2007)

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