SIR THOMAS BEECHAM (St. Helens, Lancashire, 29.04.1879 – London, 8.03.1961). He studied at Rossall Scholl and Wadham College, Oxford, but did not attend any music school. He began his career in 1905 in London with the Queen’s Hall Orchestra. The following year he founded the New Symphony Orchestra, which he conducted until 1909, when he formed his own ensemble, the Beecham Symphony Orchestra. In 1910 he also began an impresario’s business, organising a high quality opera season in London. From 1911 he introduced the ‘Ballets Russes’ there and, at Diaghilew’s invitation, conducted several in Berlin. In 1915 he founded the Beechamp Opera Company. During the First World War he financed and directed opera and concert performances in London. After the war he resumed his concert activity in England, Germany and Austria and in 1928 for the first time in the United States. In 1929 he organised and conducted the Delius Festival in London and in 1932 founded the London Philharmonic Orchestra. After a string of successes in Paris (where he was decorated with the ‘Légion d’Honneur’’in 1938), Australia, Canada, the United States and Mexico, he formed the Royal Philarmonic Orchestra in 1946, with which he continued to tour tirelessly. From 1947 he conducted the Edinburgh Festival and, in 1948-49, the Mozart Festival in Portsmouth. In 1916 he was made a baronet. Two musical societies bear his name, one based in Redondo Beach (USA), the other in Essex (Great Britain). His writings include ‘A Mingled Chime: Leaves from an Autobiography’, published in London in 1943 (reissued in 1976 as ‘Lyric Stage’) and ‘Delius’, published in London in 1959.