People, Locations, Episodes

Dean Dixon, Orchestral Conductor born

Dean Dixon

This is the day of Dean Dixon’s birth in 1915. He was a Black orchestral conductor.

Born in New York City, he never wanted to be identified as an American Conductor or a Negro Conductor.  He was an artist from his heart without labels beyond music. After conducting with Stoesel at the Julliard School and graduating from Columbia University, Dixon formed an orchestra in his home city in 1932. In 1941, he led the New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra as their first Black conductor.  He also guest conducted the Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Boston, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. Symphony Orchestras in the following years.

He left the United States in 1949 for Paris, where he started his European career conducting the Radio Symphony Orchestra of the French National Radio. He also conducted the Israel Philharmonic between 1950 and 1951 and accepted invitations to conduct in Italy, Denmark, and Sweden. From 1953 to 1960, he was Artistic and Musical Director of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra of Sweden. From 1961 until 1974, he acted as Musical Director of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra (then called the Hessische Rundfunk). From 1964 to 1967, he was appointed Musical Director of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

Dixon is noted for his recordings of 20th Century American Composers, including Cowell's Symphony No. 5, McDowell's Indian Suite, and Moore's Symphony No. 2, among others, on the American Recording Society label.

But he remained rooted in the European Classics. He recorded some of his best music for Westminster, especially the Dvorak Cello Concerto with Janigro, the Vienna State Opera Orchestra, and Schubert's Symphonies 4 and 5 with the London Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra. Fond of saying that, as his career progressed, he was first called the American Negro conductor, Dean Dixon, then the American conductor, Dean Dixon, and then the conductor, Dean Dixon.

Dixon was married three times. His first was to Vivian Rivkin, with whom he had a daughter, Diane, in 1948.  In 1954, he married Finnish Countess and playwright Mary Mandelin. The couple met in 1951.  On July 28 of that year, their daughter Nina was born.  This marriage also ended in divorce.  His final marriage was to Ritha Blume in 1973.

He felt he'd reach his zenith when he was simply Dean Dixon. In 1976, the world lost a great artiste and distinguished man in his death.

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