Lawrence (real name, Cohen), Robert
Lawrence (real name, Cohen), Robert
Lawrence(real name, Cohen), Robert, American conductor; b. N.Y., March 18, 1912; d. there, Aug. 9, 1981. He was educated at Columbia Univ. (M.A., 1934) and the Inst. of Musical Art in N.Y. From 1939 to 1943 he was a music critic for the N.Y. Herald Tribune. During World War II, he served in the U.S. Army in Italy. After conducting opera in Rome (1944–45), he was conductor of the Phoenix (Ariz.) Sym. Orch. (1949–52) and the Ankara Sym. Orch. (1957–58). In 1961 he founded the Friends of French Opera in N.Y., with which he conducted performances of many rarely heard scores. He later conducted opera in Atlanta and served as head of the opera dept. at the Peabody Cons, of Music in Baltimore. He was the author of the books The World of Opera (1958) and A Rage for Opera (1971).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire