OBITUARIES

ALLAN STEPHENSON

South African cellist, conductor and composer Allan Stephenson has died aged 71. With more than 100 compositions in several genres to his name, he was well known in the South African classical music scene, having also founded the Cape Town Chamber Orchestra and run the I Musicanti string orchestra.

Born in 1949 in the UK, Stephenson began playing the piano aged 7, and picked up the cello when he was 13. In 1968 he enrolled at the Royal Manchester College of Music, graduating in 1972. The next year he moved to South Africa where he became sub-principal cellist with the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra. He also taught the cello at the South African College Schools, and was closely associated with the University of Cape Town (UCT), where he lectured in cello and composition, and directed the UCT College Orchestra.

Stephenson conducted South Africa’s first performance of Nielsen’s Symphony no.4, and recorded the country’s first classical CD, containing his own Concertino Pastorale for clarinet and orchestra. He also championed South African composers such as Jeanne Zaidel-Rudolph and Peter Klatzow, and the Hungarian-born Thomas Rajna, who also lived in Cape Town. His own works included the operas Wonderfully Wicked, Who Killed Jimmy Valentine and The Orphans of Qumbu. He also composed one act of writer and director Michael Williams’s ‘Mandela Trilogy’, which documented the stages of Nelson Mandela’s life. He arranged The Tales of Hoffmann, La traviata and Camille for Cape Town City Ballet, often taking on the conducting duties as well.Among his other works are large amounts of chamber music, with instruments in many different combinations.

DINOS CONSTANTINIDES

Greek–American violinist and composer Dinos Constantinides has died aged 92. For more than 50 years he taught composition at Louisiana State University (LSU), championing the work of new composers and inspiring new writing. Born in 1929 in Ioannina, Greece, Constantinides undertook initial studies in violin and music theory at the Greek Conservatory in Athens. He then took further studies in violin at the Juilliard School, where his tutors included Ivan Galamian and Dorothy DeLay. After this he studied for a masters with Josef Gingold at Indiana University, and a doctoral degree in composition from Michigan State University. He played with the Indianapolis Symphony and was concertmaster of the Baton Rouge Symphony in Louisiana, where he settled in 1967.

Constantinides began teaching at LSU the same year, and in 1986 was appointed its Boyd Professor of Composition. He also became director of its New Music Festival as well as the Louisiana Sinfonietta. For 22 years he was director of the LSU Festival of Contemporary Music, where he presented works by Carlos Chávez, John Cage, Milton Babbitt, Karel Husa and Ernst Krenek among others. His compositions, which numbered over 230, included operas such as Antigone and the highly acclaimed Intimations, and six symphonies. He served on the board of directors of the Society of Composers and Music Teacher National Association, and received the 1985 Distinguished Service Award of the American New Music Consortium.

GUIDO LAMELL

Violinist Guido Lamell, who performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, died on 13 July at the age of 68. Born in 1953 he gained degrees in violin and conducting from the University of Michigan. He worked as associate concertmaster of the Louisville Orchestra and concertmaster of the Mexico City Philharmonic before joining the LA Philharmonic in 1979, under Carlo Maria Giulini.

An avid instigator of musical outreach, Lamell coordinated education activities through the Philharmonic’s Youth Orchestra Los Angeles partnership programme, coaching orchestras and conductors across the city. He helped bring this to a wider audience during the orchestra’s tour to Venezuela, where he coached two of the El Sistema youth orchestras and gave a conducting masterclass in Spanish to a group of El Sistema conducting students. In June 2011 Lamell produced a benefit concert for the victims of Japan’s 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, conducting Beethoven’s Symphony no.9 at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. In 2012 he became music director of the Santa Monica Symphony.

JEROME WIGLER

Violinist Jerome Wigler has died at the age of 101. He was the longestserving member of the Philadelphia Orchestra, where he played for 60 years until his retirement in 2011.

Wigler was born in Detroit in 1920. He graduated from the Juilliard School in 1941, landing a job in the Minneapolis Symphony the following year. Shortly after, he was drafted to serve as a medical technician in World War II, travelling to England, Wales and eventually Normandy, Paris and the Ardennes, where he served in the front lines at the Battle of the Bulge. It was there that he was wounded by a mortar shell, and he later returned to America, decorated with a Purple Heart and two Bronze Stars.

Suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, he continued his studies at the Juilliard School, declining a position in the New York Philharmonic. He joined the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1951. The orchestra said in a statement on its Facebook page: ‘As the longest-serving musician in Philadelphia Orchestra history, he was an integral part of the famous Philadelphia Sound and an institution within an institution.’