Thursday (12/8) on the Albany Times Union blog Arts Talk, Tom Keyser writes, “William ‘Edgar’ Curtis, the fourth conductor and music director of the Albany Symphony Orchestra, died Oct. 23 at Adams House, a life-care community in Fall River, Mass. He was 97. Curtis conducted the ASO from 1948 to 1964. He also served as chairman of the music department at Union College from 1955 to 1972, helped found what became the Union College Concert Series, oversaw the restoration of organs at the Union College chapel and Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in Albany, and conducted several other orchestras and ensembles in the Capital Region. … Born in Aberdeen, Scotland, Curtis studied music and philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. He then studied piano and conducting with the pianist and composer Rudolf Serkin and the conductor Fritz Busch in Europe before coming to the United States in 1940, according to obituaries prepared by his family and Union College. He continued his studies in this country with the conductors Serge Koussevitzky at Tanglewood and Fritz Reiner at the Curtis School of Music in Philadelphia.”
Posted December 9, 2011
