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Last modified on Mon 22 Feb 2021 00.21 EST
Though most closely associated with the works of Benjamin Britten, the conductor Steuart Bedford, who has died aged 81 after complications from Parkinson’s disease, was able to turn his professionalism and interpretative talents to great advantage in a range of other repertory too. The operas of Mozart elicited from him an authoritative response over a number of years at Garsington Opera while it was based in Oxfordshire.
Having launched his professional career with The Beggar’s Opera at Sadler’s Wells theatre in 1967, he went on to conduct his own edition of Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea at the Royal Academy of Music (1969), following that with the first modern British performances of Donizetti’s Belisario, also at the RAM (1972). During the years of Britten’s final illness in the early 1970s, Bedford came to the fore as a reliable and insightful interpreter of his works. Having already assisted on the 1966 Decca re
Steuart Bedford, conductor and pianist known for his work with Benjamin Britten – obituary
He conducted the world premiere of Death in Venice and was artistic director of the Aldeburgh Festival for 24 years
Steuart Bedford
Credit: Paul Mitchel 2009
Steuart Bedford, who has died aged 81, was a conductor and pianist known for his work with the composer Benjamin Britten; he made his operatic debut with Albert Herring, conducted the world premiere of Death in Venice and was artistic director of the Aldeburgh Festival for 24 years.
Bedford was working at Glyndebourne when, at the end of the 1966 festival, he was asked to play for a group of singers who were auditioning for Britten’s English Opera Group (EOG). “Although I was accompanying some excellent people, it was I who was asked to join the company,” he recalled with astonishment.
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.
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