Versatile, ubiquitous, and tireless are three words that described the career and persona of conductor/composer Bramwell Tovey. He led major orchestras in North America and Europe and composed award-winning works such as his Requiem for a Charred Skull. As a conductor, his repertory included both concert and opera fare, from J.S. Bach and Mozart to Roussel and Corigliano, but with a slight preference for British, American, and Canadian music, especially in the contemporary realm. He gave world or North American premieres of compositions by Gavin Bryars, John Adams, Joan Tower, and R. Murray Schafer, but Tovey also introduced works by Pärt, Andriessen, and other European composers and, more often than not, offered concert fare featuring mainstream music by Beethoven, Stravinsky, and others. He recorded for CBC Records, Naxos, EMI, and other labels. Tovey was born in Ilford, East London, on July 11, 1953. From age seven, he studied piano and later on became a member of various local youth ensembles playing violin and other instruments. Tovey's advanced studies were at London's Royal Academy of Music, primarily in piano and composition, but he also studied tuba with John Fletcher. Tovey steadily built his career throughout the 1970s, but his big break came in 1983 when he joined the staff at Covent Garden and led the Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet on a tour of Canada. Because of that success, he was appointed principal conductor of the ballet troupe and its orchestra. In 1986, Tovey led the London Symphony Orchestra at Barbican Centre in a program of Bernstein works. That acclaimed concert prompted Bernstein, who was in attendance, to invite Tovey to Tanglewood. That same year, Tovey's ballet The Snow Queen was premiered to acclaim by the Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet. After a season (1988-1989) conducting the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, Tovey assumed duties in 1989 as music director of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, serving until 2001. Tovey gave many memorable concerts with the orchestra, including the 1996 performance of Victor Davies' oratorio Revelation, which was broadcast over CBC television. Tovey turned out perhaps his most important works around the turn of the century: his Viola Concerto (1999), Cello Concerto (2000), and the aforementioned Requiem for a Charred Skull (2003), which received the Juno Award for Best Canadian Classical Composition. Tovey became music director of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in 2000, remaining until 2018, when he was named music director emeritus. He and the VSO accompanied James Ehnes on his Grammy-winning recording of the Barber, Korngold, and Walton Violin Concertos. Tovey had many other positions during that same time period, including with the New York Philharmonic (2001-2014); as music director of the Luxembourg Philharmonic (2002-2006); and as principal guest conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl (2008-2010). Tovey and the Foden's Brass Band -- another group with which he had a long-standing affiliation -- made New Music for Brass Band in 2009. He took a position with the Boston University School of Music in 2017, leading its orchestral activities; then, in 2019 was briefly artistic director of the Calgary Opera but had to resign after being diagnosed with cancer. His last appointment was with the Rhode Island Philharmonic, where he began as an advisor in 2018 and was named conductor in late 2021, just a few months after he also had been named music director at the Sarasota Orchestra beginning with the 2022-23 season. Unfortunately, Tovey's cancer returned in early 2022, and he passed away on July 12, 2022, a day after his 69th birthday. ~ Robert Cummings & Patsy Morita, Rovi

Bramwell Tovey

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