André Previn

André Previn earned acclaim as a classical conductor of distinction, a jazz pianist of note, and a composer active in jazz, classical, and film idioms, routinely connecting mainstream and concert traditions in ways that expanded possibilities for each. Born in Germany, he escaped Nazi persecution with his family while still young and later secured four Academy Awards for his contributions to screen musicals during the late 1950s and 1960s, among them his scoring of My Fair Lady (1964). By the 1970s he had become one of the most prominent classical conductors internationally, holding posts with the London Symphony Orchestra (1968-1979), the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (1976-1984), and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (1985-1992). He also directed the Los Angeles Philharmonic between 1985 and 1989. While leading the LSO he became a familiar figure through the BBC series André Previn's Music Hour. Throughout these years he maintained a parallel jazz recording career that featured partnerships with Benny Carter, Herb Ellis, and Shelly Manne as well as classical performers such as Itzhak Perlman, Leontyne Price, and Kiri Te Kanawa. Previn collected ten Grammy Awards and received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010.

Previn grew up in Berlin, where his father, a trained pianist who practiced law, insisted that his son pursue music professionally. The gifted youngster studied piano at the Berlin Hochschule and gained additional experience by listening to the frequent private recitals held in the family home. In 1938 the Jewish household fled to France, allowing André to continue his training on scholarship at the Paris Conservatoire. The following year the Previns moved to southern California.

With all European belongings lost and his father’s legal credentials inapplicable, the family struggled financially; although only about ten years old, André helped by playing piano for silent films in theaters and performing in jazz venues. At fourteen he began employment at MGM, where his great-uncle Charles Previn headed the music department at Universal Studios; there he orchestrated and arranged film scores while gradually saving funds to study composition with Castelnuovo-Tedesco. At eighteen he received his first assignment to write a complete film score, 1949’s The Sun Comes Up, which also marked his initial appearance conducting a professional orchestra.

After obtaining U.S. citizenship in 1943, Previn served in San Francisco during the Korean War and took conducting lessons with Pierre Monteux. Once released from military duty he departed MGM yet kept composing, conducting, and arranging motion-picture music through the 1950s, earning Academy Awards for his adaptations of Gigi (1958) and Porgy & Bess (1959). He simultaneously produced and issued several commercially successful jazz albums, a practice he resumed at intervals over subsequent decades.

Early-1960s film scores by Previn encompassed lasting titles such as Elmer Gantry (1960) and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962). Shortly before claiming his third and fourth Academy Awards for Irma la Douce (1963) and My Fair Lady (1964), he resolved to leave Hollywood and devote himself to conducting. His first professional engagement took place in 1963 with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra; for several years afterward he toured the United States, leading lesser-known ensembles to build experience and visibility. His major opportunity arrived in 1967 when he succeeded Sir John Barbirolli as music director of the Houston Symphony. In 1968 he accepted the principal-conductor position with the London Symphony Orchestra and left Houston. During his eleven-year tenure (1968-1979) the BBC programs André Previn's Music Hour brought both the orchestra and its conductor widespread recognition. Additional appointments followed with the Pittsburgh Symphony (1976-1984), the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra (1985-1989), and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (1985-1992).

Although Previn stated that composition was never a primary impulse and that most works arose from commissions, he nevertheless produced a substantial body of concert music, among them a piano concerto written for Vladimir Ashkenazy and a cello sonata commissioned by Yo-Yo Ma. In 1998 his full-length opera A Streetcar Named Desire premiered at the San Francisco Opera. In 2009 Houston Grand Opera staged his Brief Encounter, drawn from the 1945 film and its source, the Noël Coward play Still Life. That same year four concerts at Carnegie Hall honored his eightieth birthday. One year later he received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Previn died at the close of February 2019.