Sir Adrian Boult

Adrian Boult was an English conductor who had a remarkable career with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra; the BBC Symphony played regularly on radio for 20 years from its creation in 1930 with Boult at the baton. During World War II they moved to a venue in Bristol in order to keep playing through the conflict. Boult made a vast number of recordings with the BBC Symphony and his later orchestras and was nominated for five Grammy Awards. A self-described "musical purist", he paid strict attention to the score. When he died aged 93 in 1983, the New York Times said "his clarity of approach and fidelity to the score produced electrifying results". He recorded all the masters of classical music including many British composers such as Edward Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst.

The son of a well-off ship owner, he studied music at the Westminster School and Christ Church College, Oxford, and attended the Leipzig Conservatory. Illness prevented service in World War I and he made his conducting debut with the London Symphony Orchestra playing Williams's 'London' symphony in 1918. Following the debut performance of Holst's 'The Planets', he became a teacher at the Royal College of Music, conducted Diaghilev's Ballet Russes in London and became director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. With the BBC Symphony he made many international tours and he continued to conduct and teach well into his 90s.