Henry Sopkin (20 October 1903 New York – 1 March 1988 Palo Alto, California) was an American conductor. He founded, and for 21 years, from 1945 to 1966, led the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.[1][2] Before that, he had been a long-standing pedagogue at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, where he taught conducting and led the Conservatory Symphony Orchestra.[3][4]
Career highlights
editSopkin studied the violin as a youth and entered the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, where he grew up, earning both bachelor's and master's degrees in music. In the 1920s and 1930s, he taught at the American Conservatory, at Chicago area high schools, and at Woodrow Wilson College before the Atlanta Music Club hired him in 1944. Under the patronage of the Atlanta Music Club, founded in 1915, the Atlanta Symphony emerged in 1947 from a successful Atlanta Youth Orchestra conducted by Sopkin. When he retired in 1966, the Symphony became fully professional.[5][6][7] His son, Charles Sopkin (1932-1994) was an author, editor and publisher.
External links
editReferences
edit- ^ The ASCAP Biographical Dictionary, American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers
3rd ed. (1966); OCLC 598257, 604233677
4th ed. (1980); OCLC 7065938, 10721505 - ^ Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians (Ganz is in Vol. 2 of 6), Macmillan; Schirmer
6th ed., Slonimsky (ed.) (1978); OCLC 4426869
7th ed., Slonimsky (ed.) (1984); OCLC 10574930
8th ed., Slonimsky (ed.) (1992); OCLC 24246972
9th ed., Laura Kuhn (ed.) (born 1953) (2001); OCLC 44972043 - ^ Biographical Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Classical Musicians, Nicolas Slonimsky (ed), Schirmer (1997); OCLC 36111932
- ^ Biography Index, H.W. Wilson Co.; ISSN 0006-3053
Vol. 4: Sep. 1955–Aug. 1958 (1960) - ^ "Founding Conductor of ASO, Henry Sopkin, dies at age 84", Atlanta Journal-Constitution, March 3, 1988
- ^ The New Grove Dictionary of American Music, (Sopkin is in Vol. 4 of 4), H. Wiley Hitchcock & Stanley Sadie (eds.), London: Macmillan Press, (1986); OCLC 13184437
- ^ Who's Who in America. 38th ed., 1974–1975, Wilmette, IL: Marquis Who's Who (1974); OCLC 23953115