Sad news: A Paris conductor has died
mainThe New Zealand-born conductor Gary Brain has died in Paris, aged 72.
Gary was a percussionist in Wales, Ulster and at the Royal Opera House, London. He became principal timpanist with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra but on a flight to the US a suitcase fell from an overhead locker and crushed his wrist beyond repair. He retrained as a conductor, working with Rafael Kubelik and Lorin Maazel.
He won a Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik for reviving th music of the Swiss-Polish composer Czeslaw Marek and went on to make quite a few recordings for Toccata Classics. Martin Anderson remembers him here.
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