Basil Cameron

Basil Cameron CBE (18 August 1884 – 26 June 1975) was an English conductor.

Early career He was born Basil George Cameron Hindenberg at 34 Waylen Street, Reading, the son of a German immigrant family. His father, Frederick Clementz Hindenberg, was a piano tuner. He took up the violin at age 8, and studied with the organist and composer Tertius Noble at York Minster, and then for four years at the Berlin Hochschule, where his violin teachers were Joseph Joachim and Leopold Auer. Back in England he joined Henry Wood's Queen's Hall Orchestra in 1908 and then the London Symphony Orchestra. In 1912, Hindenberg began conducting at the resort of Torquay, where he included music by Delius and Stravinsky in the repertoire alongside more popular seaside favorites. He also organized festivals dedicated to the music of Wagner (1913) and Strauss (1914), raising the profile of the orchestra.

During the war, Cameron served in the British Army from November 1915 to August 1918, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant and was wounded in action at Bullecourt in 1918. After the war, Cameron led orchestras in many other British seaside resorts, including Brighton, Hastings (from 1923) and Harrogate (from 1924, succeeding Howard Carr). Laudatory reviews by George Bernard Shaw and Percy Grainger increased his renown, and led to London engagements from the Royal Philharmonic Society. Eric Coates, who had been a violinist with Cameron in the Queen’s Hall Orchestra, dedicated his Four Ways Suite of 1927 to him. It had been commissioned by Cameron and was premiered in Harrogate that year.

In 1929 Cameron organized an all-British festival in Harrogate, including the music of Bax, Delius, Henry Balfour Gardiner, Joseph Holbrooke, William Hurlstone and Peter Warlock.

In 1930 he guest-conducted with the San Francisco Symphony, and was later invited to become its music director, where from 1930 and 1932 he served as joint music director with Issay Dobrowen. In 1932 he was appointed music director of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, where he stayed until February 1938. In 1940, he joined the conducting staff of the Proms as an associate conductor to Wood, and began conducting for various orchestras, the London Philharmonic Orchestra most frequently. With the LPO, Cameron conducted the first UK performance of Benjamin Britten's Violin Concerto (on 6 April 1941), and the first UK performance of the Sinfonia da Requiem at the Royal Albert Hall on 22 July 1942. Despite some underlying hostility the work was received by the audience with unexpected enthusiasm, and (according to The Musical Times) Greenbaum played with "immense courage". Other premieres he conducted at the Proms included E. J. Moeran's Serenade in G (on 2 September 1948) and Alan Bush's Violin Concerto (on 25 August 1949). On 31 March 1960, while conducting the London Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall with Wilhelm Backhaus as soloist, Cameron became ill and could not continue. He retired in 1964, aged 80 years, with a final concert featuring the Symphony No 4 by Brahms and the Symphony of Psalms by Stravinsky.

He was married twice, first to Frances James, and second (in April, 1946) to Phyllis MacQueen, but died (unmarried) in a Leominster nursing home, aged 91.