Andrew Davis (conductor)
Sir Andrew Frank Davis CBE (2 February 1944 – 20 April 2024) was an English conductor. He was the long-time chief conductor of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. He was music director at the Glyndebourne Festival from 1988 to 2000, and especially known for conducting the traditional Last Night of The Proms, including Last Night speeches. He was music director and principal conductor of the Lyric Opera of Chicago from 2000 to the 2020/21 season.
Andrew Davis
Music critic Alan Blyth described Davis as "a conductor whose technical skill was enhanced by an inborn enthusiasm for and dedication to the task in hand that he was able to transfer to the forces before him."[1]
Early life and education[edit]
Andrew Frank Davis was born on 2 February 1944, in Ashridge, Hertfordshire, England.[1][2] His parents were Robert J. Davis and his wife Florence Joyce (née Badminton),[3] Davis grew up in Chesham, Buckinghamshire, and in Watford.[4] He had piano lessons from age five[3] and attended Watford Boys' Grammar School, where he studied Classics in his sixth form years. His adolescent musical work included playing the organ at the Palace Theatre, Watford.[4]
Davis studied at the Royal College of Music and King's College, Cambridge, where he was an organ scholar, graduating in 1967.[1][5] He later studied conducting in Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Rome, with Franco Ferrara.[1]