Leslie Heward

Leslie Hays Heward (8 December 1897 – 3 May 1943)[1] was an English composer and conductor. Between 1930 and 1942 he was the Music Director of the City of Birmingham Orchestra.[1]

Leslie Heward while he was Director of the Cape Town Orchestra

Heward was born in Liversedge, Yorkshire, the son of a railway porter[1] and organist.[2] He showed remarkable musical promise as a child.[3] By the age of two he was playing the piano, by the age of four he was playing the organ, and by the age of eight he was accompanying a performance of Handel's Messiah on the organ in Bradford.[1] In 1917 he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music.[1] There he was one of the first pupils in Adrian Boult's conducting class, and was described by Hubert Parry as "the kind of phenomenon that appears once in a generation".[4]

He conducted the first performance (1938) and the first recording (1942) of Ernest John Moeran's Symphony in G minor.

References
  1. Jones 2004.
  2. Blom.
  3. King-Smith 1995, p. 52.
  4. King-Smith 1995, p. 53.

Bibliography
  • Blom, Eric. "Heward, Leslie (Hays)". Grove Music Online. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2017-01-08.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Andrew Moeran (March 2006). "Moeran's People and Places". The Worldwide Moeran Database. Retrieved 2007-08-18.
  • Jones, Michael (2004). "Heward, Leslie Hays (1897–1943), composer and conductor". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2017-01-08.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • King-Smith, Beresford (1995). Crescendo! 75 years of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. London: Methuen. ISBN 0413697401.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)


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