Adrian Boult

Sir Adrian Cedric Boult, CH was a British conductor. Brought up in a prosperous mercantile family, he followed musical studies in England and at Leipzig, Germany, with early conducting work in London for the Royal Opera House and Sergei Diaghilev's ballet company. His first prominent post was conductor of the City of Birmingham Orchestra in 1924. When the British Broadcasting Corporation appointed him director of music in 1930, he established the BBC Symphony Orchestra and became its chief conductor. The orchestra set standards of excellence that were rivalled in Britain only by the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO), founded two years later.

8 April 1889

Born on the same birth day (8 April): Ana de la Reguera • Anthony Farrar-Hockley • CeeDee Lamb • Dimitrios Levidis • Elizabeth Bacon Custer • Emma Caulfield • Franco Corelli • Hirsch Jacobs • John Scott (sociologist) • Julius Seljamaa • Larry Norman • Lewis Morris • Martin J. Schreiber • Mary W. Gray • Michael Jones (rugby union) • Rachel Roberts (model) • Ron Johnson • TBJZL

Born in the same month (April 1889): A. Philip Randolph • Arnold J. Toynbee • Charlie Chaplin • Jessie Street • Louis Rougier • Ludwig Wittgenstein • Richard Glücks • Stafford Cripps