“Sir Neville Marriner is not the most ancient mariner of the classical music world—that honor, he’ll tell you, may belong to Stanislaw Skrowaczewski,” writes Mike Boehm in Sunday’s (1/11) Los Angeles Times. “But Marriner’s 90th birthday year—he’ll turn 91 on April 15—has been a big deal in the world of classical music, where the conductor is widely regarded as one of the most prolific, rigorous and amiable musicians of his time. Marriner’s artistic home is London, where in 1958 he founded the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields as a small, informal chamber group that turned into a juggernaut with hundreds of recordings and unrelenting touring. Marriner also has an important place in Southern California music history as the founding music director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra from 1969 to 1978. He’s back for a 90th birthday bow, with a concert Jan. 18 leading the Colburn Orchestra in Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto and Holst’s ‘The Planets’ at Walt Disney Concert Hall.” The article includes an interview with Marriner, in which he speaks about his work recording the soundtrack for the movie Amadeus, ways audiences are changing, his coming to Los Angeles, and funding for orchestral music and opera in Europe and the U.S.
Posted January 13, 2015
