31 Facts About John Lanchbery

John Arthur Lanchbery OBE was an English-Australian composer and conductor, famous for his ballet arrangements.

John Lanchbery served as the Principal Conductor of the Royal Ballet from 1959 to 1972, Principal Conductor of the Australian Ballet from 1972 to 1977, and Musical Director of the American Ballet Theatre from 1978 to 1980.

John Lanchbery continued to conduct regularly for the Royal Ballet until 2001.

Maina Gielgud, Artistic Director of Australian Ballet, stated that "He [John Lanchbery] is not only the finest conductor for dance of his generation and probably well beyond".

John Lanchbery was famous for his re-adaptation of canonical works.

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John Lanchbery was born in London on 15 May 1923, where he began violin lessons and music composition when he was eight years of age.

John Lanchbery was educated at Alleyn's School, where he formed a collaborative partnership with Peter Stanley Lyons who was later a famous chorister, and with Kenneth Spring who was the founder of the National Youth Theatre and whose composer mother encouraged Lanchbery's musical talent.

John Lanchbery was in 1942 awarded the Henry Smart Composition Scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied under Sir Henry Wood until his studies were interrupted by the war, during which he served in the Royal Armoured Corps, after which John Lanchbery returned to the RAM to study for two more years before he returned to Alleyn's School as a music master.

John Lanchbery was declined the job of Alleyn's School's Director of Music, and subsequently worked for a music publisher.

John Lanchbery was recommended to apply for the post of Conductor of the Metropolitan Ballet.

John Lanchbery obtained the position and made his debut with them at Edinburgh in 1948.

However, working with choreographer Celia Franca, Lanchbery wrote The Eve of St Agnes, one of the first commissioned ballets to be shown on BBC television.

John Lanchbery composed film scores for Eric Robinson before joining the Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet in 1951, with whom he proceeded to orchestrate, in 1953, the first professional ballet choreographed by Kenneth MacMillan: Somnambulism whose music was composed with music by Stan Kenton.

John Lanchbery orchestrated The House of Birds in 1955, with original music by Federico Mompou.

John Lanchbery served as Principal Conductor of the Royal Ballet from 1959 from 1972.

John Lanchbery arranged La fille mal gardee, to choreography by Frederick Ashton, for the Royal Ballet in 1960.

John Lanchbery's re-working included some Donizetti and much of his own invention.

Notable successes for John Lanchbery included the arrangement of the Liszt music for Kenneth MacMillan's stormy multi-act Mayerling, which premiered at Covent Garden in 1978, and the arrangement of the Franz Lehar score for the first full-length ballet production of The Merry Widow for the Australian Ballet in 1976.

John Lanchbery's sources were many and varied, including the operas of Michael William Balfe and Arthur Sullivan.

John Lanchbery arranged the music and conducted the orchestra for Nijinsky in 1980.

John Lanchbery was the first to convert operas into ballets, and he wrote music for some British films of the 1950s, including Deadly Nightshade and Colonel March Investigates.

John Lanchbery was involved in The Turning Point, starring Mikhail Baryshnikov and Leslie Browne, and his score for Evil Under the Sun was based on songs by Cole Porter, a memorable rendition of "You're The Top" by Diana Rigg.

John Lanchbery arranged more than 30 pieces by Franz Liszt for Macmillan's Mayerling, which premiered at Covent Garden in 1978, and arranged another successful re-working of Minkus for Nureyev's production of La Bayadere in 1991.

Nureyev considered John Lanchbery to be the greatest conductor of his time, but critics who disliked innovation disliked John Lanchbery's tampering with original scores.

John Lanchbery was the first non-Soviet conductor to receive the Bolshoi Medal.

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John Lanchbery received the Carina Ari Medal and the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award, Britain's highest professional award.

John Lanchbery married a Sadler's Wells principal Elaine Fifield in 1951.

John Lanchbery became an Australian citizen in 2002, making his home in Melbourne, where he died on 27 February 2003.

John Lanchbery was survived by his daughter, Margaret, of Melbourne, and his companion, Thomas Han.

However, John Lanchbery was the most successful and prolific arranger of music for ballet.

John Lanchbery's works included supporting tertiary students: during a 1976 visit to Australia, John Lanchbery conducted the 27th Intervarsity Choral Festival choir performing Rossini's Petite messe solennelle and Gaudeamus igitur in Hobart.