Andrew Davis

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 7 September 1986

⏱️ 35 minutes

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Summary

Andrew Davis, who has been the Music Director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra since 1975, was born in England and studied music at King's College, Cambridge, where he was an organ scholar. In conversation with Michael Parkinson, he recalls how he first made his mark as a conductor, and talks about the many facets of his work which includes opera at Glyndebourne and Covent Garden and conducting many renowned orchestras.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Missa Solemnis In D - Gloria by Ludwig van Beethoven Book: Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift Luxury: Collection of Apostle spoons

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.
0:05.0	For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.
0:08.0	The program was originally broadcast in 1986, and the presenter was Michael Parkinson. McCastaway has been described as probably the most successful of the new generation of British
0:33.4	conductors. He is the music director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Andrew
0:37.5	Davis. And more than that he's probably the only castaway that we've
0:40.2	interviewed so far who actually owns an island.
0:43.0	Andrew, tell me about this island, where is it?
0:46.0	It's in Georgian Bay, which is the Canadian bit of Lake Huron,
0:49.0	and it's about 120 miles north of Toronto,
0:52.0	so it takes me a couple of hours to get up there and then
0:53.6	40 minutes by boat and really it is very very secluded and cut off I have no
0:58.7	telephone no electricity. This is the hideaway is it from the the hustle and bustle of your job?
1:03.0	It's actually the best thing I ever did.
1:05.0	I bought the place in 1980 and it's been really great for my sanity and general peace of mind.
1:11.0	It's good about right to the beginning now of your life.
1:15.0	Was there ever any doubt that you're going to do anything other than music?
1:19.0	I don't think so.
1:20.0	I suppose for a brief time when I was at school and I was really into Latin and Greek
1:24.0	I thought I'd be a classics master but not much employment for classics masters anymore
1:28.1	are there these days but I suppose really from the age of two when my mother tells me I was singing
1:33.5	before I was talking and obviously loved music immediately so I started to
1:37.4	pay the piano when I was about five. What about the family was there any
	...

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