Galkin, Elliott W(ashington)

Galkin, Elliott W(ashington), American conductor, music critic, and educator; b. N.Y., Feb. 22, 1921;d. Baltimore, May 24, 1990. He studied at Brooklyn Coll. (B.A., 1943), then served with the U.S. Air Force (1943–16). While stationed in France, he received conducting diplomas from the Paris Cons. (1948) and the Ecole Normale de Musique (1948). Returning to the U.S., he studied at Cornell Univ. (M.A., 1950; Ph.D., 1960, with the diss. The Theory and Practice of Orchestral Conducting from 1752). During 1955–56, he was an apprentice conductor with the Vienna State Opera. In 1956 he joined the faculty of Goucher Coll. in Towson, Md., where he served as chairman of the music dept. (1960–77) and as a prof. (1964–77). In 1957 he joined the faculty of the Peabody Cons, of Music in Baltimore as a conductor. He was chairman of its music history and literature dept. (1964–77), and also director of musical activities and a prof, at Johns Hopkins Univ. (from 1968). From 1977 to 1982 he served as director of the Peabody Cons, of Music, and subsequently was director of its graduate program in music criticism. He also was active as conductor of the Baltimore Chamber Orch. (from 1960) and served as music ed. and critic of the Baltimore Sun (1962–77). In 1972 and 1975 he received ASCAP-Deems Taylor Awards, and in 1982 was awarded the George Foster Peabody Medal for out-standing contributions to music. He publ. the valuable study A History of Orchestral Conducting (Stuyvesant, N.Y., 1988).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire