Jean Martinon

After the war, Martinon was appointed conductor of the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire of Paris, and, in 1946, of the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine.

On Martinon's first visit to Dublin in March 1946, his interpretation of Debussy's La Mer (the Irish premiere of the work) was described as ‘a musical event of real importance’. The success of that first concert led Radio Éireann (the Irish public broadcasting service) to engage him in the following year to assist in the selection of musicians and the general organisation of the newly constituted Radio Éireann Symphony Orchestra. While in Dublin Martinon encouraged the development of Our Lady's Choral Society, he conducted that choir in several important events with the radio orchestra, and he gave master classes in orchestral conducting and in composition in the Summer School of Music.

Other orchestras with which he was associated were the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as music director from 1963 to 1968; the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker, the French National Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Concerts Lamoureux and Het Residentie Orkest in The Hague.

Martinon's repertoire focused on the works of early twentieth-century French and Russian composers. The premieres of his violin and cello concertos were given by Henryk Szeryng and Pierre Fournier respectively.

He was a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity.

Martinon was diagnosed with bone cancer not long after he guest-conducted the San Francisco Symphony in its first complete performances of Deryck Cooke's completion of Gustav Mahler's tenth symphony. He died in Paris.

Source: Article "Jean Martinon" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.