John McGlinn

John Alexander McGlinn III (September 18, 1953 – February 14, 2009) was an American conductor and musical theatre archivist. He was a leading advocate of the use of original orchestrations and vocal arrangements in studio cast recordings of Broadway musicals, and he made several notable albums exemplifying his philosophy of historical authenticity.

Biography McGlinn was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, and raised in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania. A self-taught pianist, he studied music theory and composition at Northwestern University, graduating in 1976. The New Yorker magazine called McGlinn's Show Boat "the show album of the past" and "a show album for the future. It unites the possibilities of reproduction and reinvestigation." McGlinn unearthed the lost materials for Show Boat in a Secaucus, New Jersey, warehouse in 1982.

In 1992, EMI chose not to renew his contract. During this period he conducted many performances of musicals in concert, including the original 1925 No, No, Nanette (at the Carnegie Recital Hall), and the Kern-Hammerstein show Sunny. He made several radio appearances with the BBC Symphony Orchestra for BBC Radio 3, conducted several concerts in conjunction with the Library of Congress Music Division, and was guest conductor on an "Evening With The Boston Pops" telecast. He returned to the recording studio to make two albums of excerpts from Wagner operas for Naxos Records. At the New York City Opera he conducted revivals of Brigadoon and H.M.S. Pinafore and, in 1993, at Juilliard School of Music, he conducted the Poulenc one-act operas La Voix humaine and Les Mamelles de Tirésias. Another project, begun in early 2001, was to record and edit for The Packard Humanities Institute scholarly editions of Victor Herbert and Jerome Kern musicals, but none of these albums has been released. His last project was to edit a new edition of the 1954 Broadway version of Peter Pan for Samuel French.

Discography Irving Berlin: Annie Get Your Gun, EMI Records 54206, 1991 George Gershwin: Kiri sings Gershwin, EMI Records 47454, 1987 George Gershwin: Gershwin Overtures, EMI Records 47977, 1987 Jerome Kern: Show Boat, EMI Records 49108, 1988 Jerome Kern: Jerome Kern Treasury, EMI Records 54883, 1993 Jerome Kern: Overtures and Music from Swing Time, EMI 49630, 1989 Jerome Kern: Sitting Pretty, New World Records 80387, 1990 Frederick Loewe: Brigadoon, EMI Records 54481, 1992 Cole Porter: Anything Goes, EMI Records 89442, 1989 Cole Porter: Kiss Me, Kate, EMI Records 54033, 1990 Cole Porter: Night and Day - Thomas Hampson sings Cole Porter, EMI Records 54203, 1991 Cole Porter: Overtures and Ballet Music, EMI Records 54300, 1991 Richard Rodgers: My Funny Valentine - Frederica von Stade, EMI Records 54071, 1990 Harry Warren: The Busby Berkeley Album, EMI Records 55189, 1994 Kurt Weill: Kurt Weill on Broadway, EMI Records 55563, 1996 various: The Lorelei - Kim Criswell, EMI Records 54802, 1993 various: Broadway Showstoppers, EMI Records 54586, 1992 various: Songs of New York, Book-of-the-Month Club Records 417005, 1984