Theodore Bloomfield

Biography

Theodore Robert Bloomfield (June 14, 1923 – April 1, 1998) was an American conductor. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, he studied music at Oberlin College in Ohio and conducting with Edgar Schenkman for two years on a fellowship at the Juilliard School in Manhattan. He studied French horn to gain experience in orchestral performance, and he also studied piano with the Chilean pianist Claudio Arrau. For two summers, he studied conducting with Pierre Monteux in Hancock, Maine. In 1946, Monteux conducted the San Francisco Symphony in the premiere of Bloomfield's transcription of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in C major. Artur Rodzinski conducted the New York Philharmonic premiere of Bloomfield's Toccata and Fugue transcription on October 3, 1946. Olin Downes review stated "This is a sound job, one free from oversimplification or the sensational effects in which so many modern transcriptions indulge. Mr. Bloomfield tells us that he tried to instrumentate as he believes Bach would have done had he had a modern orchestra at his disposal". He closed his review with the words "The score sounded clearly and well". His first conducting experience was with the New York Little Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Chamber Music Hall on December 21, 1945. He was chosen from 100 applicants to serve as an apprentice conductor to George Szell at the Cleveland Orchestra for 1946–1947. In 1946, he conducted what then was believed to be the premiere of Charles Ives Central Park in the Dark. This was in New York City with a student chamber orchestra from the Juilliard School at an all-Ives concert held at the McMillin Theatre at Columbia University. (Ives himself recalled an earlier performance – 1906 or 1907). Bloomfield was also the off-stage conductor for the premiere of Ives' The Unanswered Question at the same concert. In 1947, he organized the Cleveland Little Symphony Orchestra which he directed until 1952. He was a finalist in the Eugene Ormandy contest in November 1948. In 1949, he organiz

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