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Tuesday, February 16, 2021
Steuart Bedford on Aldeburgh Beach (photo: Paul Mitchell)
Steuart Bedford, who conducted the world premiere and first recording of Benjamin Britten’s final opera,
Death in Venice, in 1973, has died. He was 81.
The grandson of the opera singer Liza Lehmann and the composer, author, miniature painter and inventor Herbert Bedford, son of the singer Lesley Duff, and brother of the composer David Bedford and singer Peter Lehmann Bedford, Steuart Bedford studied at Oxford University and the Royal Academy of Music. He made his conducting debut in 1964, at the helm of the Oxford Chamber Orchestra. From 1965 to ’67, he was on the staff at Glyndebourne, and made his professional conducting debut in 1967. From 1965 he was a professor at the Royal Academy.