Robert Craft

American conductor Robert Craft led some of the world's greatest orchestras and helped to bring classical music to mass audiences in the 1950s and '60s, and had a unique friendship with legendary Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, which consumed much of his work and life. Born in Ulster County in the north of New York state, he served in the Army Medical Corps during WWII and was studying at the Juilliard School of Music in 1947, when he wrote to Stravinsky asking to borrow sheet music of his concert piece 'Symphonies of Wind Instruments'. By chance Stravinsky was at that moment reworking the piece, and he agreed to waive his fee and perform the new version at a Town Hall concert organised by Craft. Stravinsky later employed Craft to transcribe and manage his musical endeavours, and the pair went on to tour together and share conducting duties throughout the 1960s. Craft became a member of the family and wrote essays, books and conducted interviews with his mentor before his death in 1971, and is said to have had a major influence on the maestro's later work. Craft also became the first American to conduct Alban Berg's operas 'Wozzeck' and 'Lulu' in the early 1960s and made recordings of works by Anton Webern and Arnold Schoenberg, as well as working with major orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic. He flourished as a lecturer, conductor and writer, turned his hand to Monteverdi, Bach and Mozart and was awarded the prestigious Grand Prix du Disque before his death in 2015.

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