- Denis Vaughan
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Denis Vaughan (born 6 June 1926) is an orchestral conductor most famous for his role as the driving force behind the creation of the United Kingdom's National Lottery. He is a campaigner for wider access to arts and culture for young people, and promotes the health benefits of music, the arts and sport. He is president of CAARE (Council for the Advancement of Arts, Recreation & Education), the charity he founded in 1996.
Vaughan was born in Melbourne, Australia, and graduated from Melbourne University with a Bachelor of Music in 1947. He won a scholarship to study organ and double bass at England’s Royal College of Music, under the tutelage of George Thalben-Ball and Eugene Cruft.
In 1950, he joined the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and went on tour to the United States with Sir Thomas Beecham. By 1954 he was assistant conductor and chorus master, in which capacity he formed the Beecham Choral Society. This was followed by engagements at La Scala, Hamburg and Munich opera houses and a season at Bayreuth as assistant to Hans Knappertsbusch. In 1959, together with Klemperer, Celibidache, Bernstein and Maazel, Vaughan was invited to conduct one of the special concerts performed in Parma in honour of Arturo Toscanini.
By 1966, having settled in Rome, Vaughan had received worldwide acclaim for his recordings for RCA Victor. His discography with the Orchestra "Scarlatti" of Naples includes the complete symphonies of Schubert, twelve Haydn symphonies, works by Schubert, Bach and Mozart, including eleven early symphonies and the opera Il re pastore (with Lucia Popp, Reri Grist, and Luigi Alva).
In the 1950s he participated in annual concerts featuring four harpsichordists, the three others being Thurston Dart, George Malcolm and Eileen Joyce. In 1957 this group also recorded two of Vivaldi's Concertos for Four Harpsichords, one in a Bach arrangement, with the Pro Arte Orchestra under Boris Ord. They also recorded Malcolm's Variations on a Theme of Mozart.[1]
He then spent a few years in Germany, before being appointed by the Opera House in Adelaide as the artistic director of the theatre.
He moved to London in 1987 and began a campaign to establish a National Lottery in the UK, with the aim of increasing access to culture and sport for all young people, and therefore improving the daily quality of life of the nation. Following his 1988 Sunday Telegraph article "Why not gamble on culture?", Ken Hargreaves MP presented an early day motion in the House of Commons in April 1989 calling for an Arts/Sports Lottery. It received 67 all-party signatures.
Less than a year later, the Adam Smith Institute invited Vaughan to write a paper entitled "The Case for a National Arts Lottery". Articles were also featured in the House Magazine and The Times, and Vaughan delivered an address to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) Sport and Leisure Conference. In January 1992, Vaughan advised Sir Ivan Lawrence QC, who led a debate in the House of Commons, and a year later the Commons approved the Lottery in a vote.
In succeeding in his campaign for a National Lottery, Vaughan increased funds for the arts and sport sevenfold. He was described by the late Lord Howell at as "the man who brought more money to sport than anyone else in the 20th Century".
In 1996 he founded the charity CAARE to continue promoting the benefits of wider access to arts and sport, and to act as a monitor of the National Lottery’s use of funds in these areas. As president of CAARE he directs the charity’s work in seeking further improvements in the quality of life of young people in Britain.
In 2008 his work with CAARE was highly praised in the Times (April 17)("Thank heavens for campaigners such as Denis Vaughan"). The fundamental changes which he aims to achieve with CAARE's help include priorities in Treasury in GB, so that the daily lives of the populace are based on physical, emotional, mental and spiritual education, in equal proportions.
The minimal effort put into providing facilities for and constant stimulation towards daily participation for all young people in physical and creative activities needs to be radically changed until a permanent programme is available, not at risk of being dropped as a result of bureaucratic or political whim.
Vaughan's indications of how the holistic aspects of behaviour include spiritual awareness at a high level are discussed at the highest levels, including Anthony Seldon at Wellington College and Matthew Taylor at the Royal Society of Arts.
Denis Vaughan is an acknowledged world authority on the manuscript scores of Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Puccini and Antonín Dvořák. He continues to conduct, as for instance in May 2005, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall.
References
External links
Categories:- 1926 births
- Living people
- Australian conductors (music)
- Alumni of the Royal College of Music
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