Monday’s (8/29) Oakland Local reports that “distinguished classical music recording producer and orchestra manager Harold Lawrence, died Aug. 22 in his Oakland home at the age of 88. Lawrence began his career in the record industry as music director of the Classical Division of Mercury Records where he produced more than 350 albums for its famed ‘Living Presence’ catalog. He was the first American ever appointed to lead a British orchestra in 1967 when he became general manager of the London Symphony Orchestra. … Lawrence returned to his native New York in 1973 to manage the New York Philharmonic, where he became the first executive producer of the Exxon/New York Philharmonic Radio Network. In 1975, he was recruited to manage the Buffalo Philharmonic by Maestro Michael Tilson Thomas. In 1977, Edgar Kaiser persuaded Lawrence to move west to head the Oakland Symphony, where he would hire rising-star Calvin Simmons as music director, making Simmons the first African American conductor of a major orchestra. … [Lawrence] was an appointee to the Oakland Arts Council under several Oakland mayors and served as grants panelist for the California Arts Council and National Endowment for the Arts.”
Posted August 30, 2011
