Transitions.

JOHN LANCHBERY

London-born John Lanchbery, who died in Melbourne, Australia, February 27, 2003, at age 79, was one of the best-known ballet conductors of the twentieth-century. More significantly, he was among the finest arrangers and orchestrators of ballet scores that dance has ever known and as such he has left a small but appreciable and probably lasting impact on the art to which he devoted his life.

Educated at the Royal Academy of Music, where he won a prize for composition, his first professional assignment was as musical director (1947-49) of London's ambitious but short-lived Metropolitan Ballet, for which he orchestrated John Taras's Designs With Strings (1948) and composed the score for Rosella Hightower's Pleasuredrome (1949). He joined the Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet in 1951. He was later principal conductor of The Royal Ballet (1960-72), musical director of the Australian Ballet (1972-78), and musical director of American Ballet Theatre (1978-80), after which he freelanced, although he maintained strong connection with those companies as well as with Houston Ballet. He was a favorite conductor of Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev and his services were in constant demand.

His masterpiece was unquestionably his 1960 score for Frederick Ashton's La Fille mal gardee, with music reorchestrated from various old original sources, plus a certain amount of new composition. He also worked with Ashton on The Dream, A Month in the Country, The Creatures of Prometheus, and the film (later staged) The Tales of Beatrix Potter. His collaborations with Kenneth MacMillan started in 1953 with Somnambulism, MacMillan's very first work, set to jazz music by Stan Kenton. He later worked with MacMillan on The House of Birds and Mayerling. For Nureyev he arranged scores for Don Quixote and La Bayadere; for Ronald Hynd, he contributed The Merry Widow and Rosalinda; for Scottish Ballet's Peter Darrell, Tales of Hoffmann; for Ben Stevenson The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Dracula, and The Snow Maiden.--Clive Barnes

LOU HARRISON

Distinguished American composer Lou Harrison, who wrote prolifically for stage and concert hall, died of a heart attack February 2, 2003, in Lafayette, Indiana. He was 85 and had been a fifty-year resident of Aptos, California.

Harrison, a native of Portland, Oregon, studied with Henry Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg in California, formed a lasting friendship with John Cage, moved to New York in 1943, wrote music criticism, composed, conducted (most notably, the premiere of Charles Ives's Third Symphony), served as rehearsal pianist for choreographer Jean Erdman, and danced, briefly; even at an advanced age, he delighted in showing friends his superior turnout. Harrison returned to California in 1953 and immersed himself in the music and dances of non-Western cultures, especially those from Asia. He built several gamelans (Indonesian percussion orchestras) and composed extensively for them.

Harrison's sensuous and tuneful scores proved a respite from the serial orthodoxy that prevailed for most of his career. Dances, ancient and modern, figured prominently in his highly rhythmic effusions. He wrote scores for dances by Erdman, Merce Cunningham, Lester Horton, and Bonnie Bird. Harrison was championed famously by the Mark Morris Dance Group, for whom he composed Rhymes With Silver (Silver was Harrison's middle name) for cellist Yo-Yo Ma in 19971 Morris has also choreographed several works to other Harrison scores, including Grand Duo (1993), Pacific (San Francisco Ballet, 1995), World Power (1995), and Serenade (2003).

Harrison was predeceased by his life partner, William Colvig. He is survived by companion Todd Burlingame, sister-in-law. Dorothy Harrison, and two nephews.--Allan Ulrich