Oscar-winning conductor, composer André Previn dies at 89
Conductor and composer André Previn died at the age of 89. The German-born musician was an extraordinary and versatile talent who blurred the boundaries between jazz, pop, film and classical music.
For many Britons, however, he will always be best known as ‘Andrew Preview’ for his appearance on 1971’s ‘Morecambe and Wise Christmas Special’, which featured him conducting Eric Morecambe as an inept soloist in Grieg’s Piano Concerto.
In 1967, Previn succeeded Sir John Barbirolli as music director of the Houston Symphony Orchestra. The following year he was appointed principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra — a post he held for 11 years.
His close relationship with the orchestra continued throughout his life. He was made conductor laureate in 1992 and conductor emeritus in 2016, and last conducted them in London in 2015, theguardian.com wrote.
From 1976-84, Previn was music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and between 1985-88, principal conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
A spell as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the late 80s was cut short when he resigned following a disagreement over the appointment of his successor.
In recent years, he was music director of the Oslo Philharmonic (2002 to 2006), and in 2009 was appointed Principal Guest Conductor of Tokyo’s NHK Symphony Orchestra.
His first opera, ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ was premiered at San Francisco Opera in 1998 with Renée Fleming as Blanche Dubois, and he also wrote musicals, orchestral and chamber works and several concertos, and he continued to work in Hollywood throughout his life as a score writer and arranger.
He was nominated 11 times for an Oscar, winning four — for best scoring of a musical for Lerner and Loewe’s Gigi and Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, and best score (adaptation or treatment) for the Billy Wilder comedy Irma la Douce, and then for George Cukor’s blockbuster version of ‘Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady’.
He also wrote song music for ‘Paint Your Wagon’ — a film based on another Lerner and Loewe musical.