Conductors: First Again

At 16, Los Angeles-born Henry Lew is became the first Negro musician to play regularly with a major U.S. orchestra, joining the double-bass section of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. His real ambition, though, was to swap his bow for a baton. He got conducting experience in the military with the Seventh Army Symphony, and later organized the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. In 1961, he substituted for Igor Markevitch with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and within a few years he ranked as the outstanding Negro conductor in the U.S., though he had no orchestra of his own.

Last week Lewis, 35, became the first Negro to be named music director of an American orchestra.* The Newark-based New Jersey Symphony announced that he would take over in June from Kenneth Schermerhorn, who is moving to the Milwaukee Symphony. The orchestra insisted that it chose Lewis only because he is talented, and not because he is Negro. Still, in a city with an estimated 55% Negro population and a recent history of racial frustration, the appointment seems astute sociologically as well as musically.

* His gifted elders, Dean Dixon, 53, and Everett Lee, 51, had to find podiums in Europe

with Frankfurt’s Hessian Radio Orchestra

and Sweden’s Norrkoping Symphony.