Bloomfield, Theodore (Robert)
Bloomfield, Theodore (Robert)
American conductor; b. Cleveland, June 14, 1923; d. 1998. He studied conducting with Maurice Kessler and piano at the Oberlin (Ohio) Coll.-Cons. of Music (Mus.B., 1944), then took courses in conducting at the Juilliard Graduate School in N.Y. with Edgar Schenkman; also studied piano with Arrau and conducting with Monteux. In 1946-47 he was apprentice conductor to Szell at the Cleveland Orch., then conducted the Cleveland Little Sym. and the Civic Opera Workshop (1947–52). He was subsequently music director of the Portland (Ore.) Sym. (1955–59) and of the Rochester (N.Y.) Phil. (1959–63). He then was first conductor of the Hamburg State Opera (1964–66) and Generalmusikdirektor of Frankfurt am Main (1966–68). From 1975 to 1982 he was chief conductor of the (West) Berlin Sym. Orch.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire