biography
| name: |
Thomas, (Christian Friedrich) Theodore
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1835–1905)
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| biography:
| Conductor, born in Esens, Germany. He studied violin before arriving in the USA with his family in 1845. After peripatetic years playing violin around the country, he made his conducting debut in New York in 1860. Two years later he founded the Thomas Orchestra, which played in New York and toured the USA until 1878, all to immense acclaim. From 1862 he was also co-conductor of the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and in 1877 took over the New York Philharmonic. Except for 1878–80, when he served as president of an institution he founded, the Cincinnati College of Music, he conducted in New York and Brooklyn until 1891. In that year he was named conductor of the Chicago Orchestra (later Symphony), where he remained until his death. He was a dynamic apostle of the symphony orchestra in the USA, perhaps doing more to foster classical music than any other in the country's history. In addition to establishing the older European repertoire, he introduced to the USA the music of Tchaikovsky, Dvořák, Bruckner, Richard Strauss, and many others. |
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