Sir Jeffrey Tate, the leading English conductor and chief conductor of the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra died on June 2nd, at the age of 74. It has been reported that he suffered a heart attack.
Tate was a conducting fixture in the opera world, ever since he made his debut in 1978 at Sweden’s Gothenburg Opera. He was a regular conductor there, alongside his duties as the principal conductor of the Geneva Opera.
Before becoming a conductor, Tate studied medicine at Cambridge and was set to pursue a career as a doctor. But he began to train at the Royal Opera House, and studied with Georg Solti. In 1976, he assisted Pierre Boulez in Bayreuth’s 1976 centennial production of Der Ring des Nibelungen. Two years after, he made his official debut at Gothenburg Opera, conducting a production of Bizet’s Carmen. The following year, he made his Metropolitan Opera debut, and in 1986 he became the principal conductor of the Royal Opera House. In 2007, he became the chief conductor of the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra.
Tate was born with spina bifida, an affliction affecting the vertebrae and causing a severe curvature of the spine. This, along with paralysis in his left leg, caused Tate to conduct from a stool in front of the orchestra. However, he could stand on occasion, telling BBC Radio 4, “that is an advantage, because if you do stand up occasionally, you can produce an effect.”
In May of this year, he was knighted Sir Jeffrey Tate, Commander of the Order of the British Empire, in recognition of his contributions to music.
Now, hear Tate conduct the RAI National Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Dvořák Symphony No. 6.