37 Facts About Colin Davis

Sir Colin Rex Davis was an English conductor, known for his association with the London Symphony Orchestra, having first conducted it in 1959.

Colin Davis's repertoire was broad, but among the composers with whom he was particularly associated were Mozart, Berlioz, Elgar, Sibelius, Stravinsky and Tippett.

Colin Davis studied as a clarinettist, but was intent on becoming a conductor.

Colin Davis held the musical directorships of Sadler's Wells Opera and the Royal Opera House, where he was principal conductor for over fifteen years.

Colin Davis made his first gramophone recordings in 1958, and his discography over the next five decades was extensive, with many studio recordings for Philips Records and a substantial catalogue of live recordings for the London Symphony Orchestra's own label.

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Colin Davis was born in Weybridge, Surrey, the fifth of seven children, to Reginald George and Lillian Colin Davis.

Colin Davis's fellow-students included Gervase de Peyer, but Davis developed a greater interest in conducting.

Colin Davis was not eligible for the conducting class at the college, because he could not play the piano.

Colin Davis was invited to conduct the recently founded Chelsea Opera Group in Don Giovanni.

In between sparse conducting engagements, Colin Davis worked as a coach and lecturer, including spells at the Cambridge University Musical Society and the Bryanston Summer School, where a performance of L'enfance du Christ awakened his love of Berlioz's music.

Colin Davis first found wide acclaim when he stood in for an ill Otto Klemperer in a performance of Don Giovanni, at the Royal Festival Hall in 1959.

In 1960, Colin Davis made his debut at the Proms in a programme of Britten, Schumann, Mozart and Berlioz.

Colin Davis introduced Weill's Mahagonny, and Pizzetti's Assassinio nella cattedrale to the British public and conducted the premiere of Bennett's The Mines of Sulphur .

Colin Davis was uncomfortable with the traditional hullabaloo of the Last Night of the Proms and attempted, unsuccessfully, to modernise it.

The BBC's Controller of Music, William Glock, was a long-standing admirer of Colin Davis, and encouraged him to put on adventurous programmes, with a new emphasis on modern music, both at the Proms and throughout the rest of the orchestra's annual schedule.

In 1970, Sir David Webster, who ran the Royal Opera and the Royal Ballet companies at Covent Garden, invited Colin Davis to succeed Sir Georg Solti as principal conductor of the opera.

At about the same time, the Boston Symphony Orchestra invited him to become its musical director, but Colin Davis felt that if Covent Garden needed him, it was his duty to take on the post.

Colin Davis's conducting of Wagner's Ring cycle was at first compared unfavourably with that of his predecessor.

Colin Davis conducted more than 30 operas during his fifteen-year tenure, but "since people like Maazel, Abbado and Muti would only come for new productions", Colin Davis yielded the baton to these foreign conductors, giving up the chance to conduct several major operas, including Der Rosenkavalier, Rigoletto and Aida.

Colin Davis debuted at the Metropolitan Opera, New York City, in 1967 with Peter Grimes, the Vienna State Opera in 1986 and the Bavarian State Opera in 1994.

From 1983 to 1993, Colin Davis was chief conductor of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, with whom he developed his concert hall repertoire, including symphonies by Bruckner and Mahler.

Colin Davis was offered but declined the music directorships of the Cleveland Orchestra in succession to Maazel and the New York Philharmonic in succession to Zubin Mehta.

In 1995, Colin Davis was appointed principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, the culmination of a long association with the orchestra.

Colin Davis had first conducted the LSO in 1959, and in 1964 he headed the orchestra's first world tour.

Colin Davis was the longest-serving principal conductor in the history of the LSO, holding the post from 1995 until 2006, after which the orchestra appointed him its President, an honour previously held only by Arthur Bliss, William Walton, Karl Bohm and Leonard Bernstein.

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Colin Davis was president of the Landesgymnasium fur Musik "Carl Maria von Weber" in Dresden, and held the International Chair of Orchestral Studies at the Royal Academy of Music, London.

Colin Davis made his first record in 1958 conducting the Sinfonia of London in performances of Mozart's Symphonies 29 and 39 for World Record Club .

Colin Davis made several records for the small independent label L'Oiseau Lyre, including a 1960 L'enfance du Christ and a 1962 Beatrice et Benedict which, at April 2013, were both still available on CD.

Colin Davis made a number of records with the Boston Symphony Orchestra for Philips, including the first of his three Sibelius cycles, which remains in the CD catalogues.

RCA Victor Red Seal, Colin Davis recorded complete symphony cycles of Sibelius, Brahms, and Schubert .

Colin Davis was appointed CBE in 1965, knighted in 1980 and appointed Companion of Honour in 2001.

Colin Davis was awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society's gold medal in 1995, the Queen's Medal for Music, 2009, and has numerous international awards, including Commendatore of the Republic of Italy, 1976; Commander's Cross, Order of Merit, 1987; Commandeur, l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, 1990; Commander, Order of the Lion, 1992; Order of Merit, 1993; Officier, Legion d'honneur, 1999 ; Order of Maximilian, 2000.

Shamsi died in June 2010 at the time Colin Davis was conducting Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro at the Royal Opera House.

Colin Davis continued the run of performances just days later and when asked, the following year, how he had the strength to perform, he replied:.

Colin Davis fell from the podium at Covent Garden in February 2011, and cancelled many engagements in the subsequent months.

Colin Davis's last concert with the LSO was a performance of Berlioz's Grande Messe des morts on 26 June 2012 at Saint Paul's Cathedral in London.

Colin Davis's last known performance was with an amateur London orchestra and soloist Thomas Gould, a month before his death.