Adrian Boult

Sir Adrian Cedric Boult CH (born 8 April 1889 in Chester; † 22 February 1983 in London) was a British conductor.

Boult studied at Westminster School and at Oxford with Hugh Allen. He completed his training at the Royal Conservatory in Leipzig, where observing the work of conductor Arthur Nikisch left lasting impressions on him.

After his return to Great Britain, he worked as a conductor at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, among other places. From 1919 to 1930 he taught at the Royal College of Music. From 1924 to 1930 he was director of the Birmingham Festival Chorus and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and from 1928 to 1931 he conducted the BBC Bach Choir. He became internationally famous as conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra from 1930 to 1950, appearing with the orchestra in Vienna in 1933, Boston and Salzburg in 1935, and New York City in 1938 and 1939. In 1936 he was conductor at the coronation celebrations of King George VI, for which he was made Knight Bachelor the following year, and in 1953 at the celebrations of Queen Elizabeth II. From 1942 to 1950 he also conducted the legendary Proms in London. In 1944 he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society.

From 1950 he was conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. He gave up this post in 1957 and from 1959 conducted the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra again. In 1968 he recorded Edward Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius for television at Canterbury Cathedral. In 1969 the Queen appointed him a Companion of Honour. He ended his active conducting career in 1979.

Boult was always in close contact with contemporary composers and conducted numerous world premieres, including Gustav Holst's suite The Planets (1918), Arthur Bliss's Music for Strings (1935) and Piano Concerto (1939), Ralph Vaughan Williams's A Pastoral Symphony (1922) and Fourth and Sixth Symphonies (1935 and 1948), and Paul Hindemith's Trauermusik (1936). Ralph Vaughan Williams dedicated to him Job: A Masque for Dancing, Herbert Howells the Concert for strings and Malcolm Williamson the Concert for organ and orchestra.

He wrote with Walter Emery The Point of the Stick, a Handbook on the Technique of Conducting (Oxford 1921, London 1949) and The Saint Matthew Passion, its Preparation and Performance (London 1949), and in 1973 published the autobiography My own Trumpet.

In his honour, the concert hall of the Birmingham Conservatoire of Birmingham City University was named Adrian Boult Hall in 1986.