Australia Dancing - Lanchbery, John (1923

Lanchbery, John (1923 - 2003)

Stringer, Walter: Portrait of John Lanchbery, 1974

Born in London, John Lanchbery studied at the Royal Academy of Music where he was a scholarship awardee. His life-long association with ballet companies began with the Metropolitan Ballet where he was musical director from 1947 to 1949. For the Metropolitan he made his first ballet orchestration when he orchestrated a movement from Tchaikovsky's piano trio for choreographer John Taras for his work Design with Strings. While with this company he also wrote his first ballet scores - Trio detruit and Pleasuredrome, this latter for a choreographic work by Rosella Hightower.

When the Metropolitan Ballet was disbanded in 1949 Lanchbery wrote some film scores and then joined the music staff of Sadler's Wells. While at Sadler's Wells he worked with choreographer Kenneth MacMillan on Somnambulism, MacMillan's very first work, set to jazz music by Stan Kenton. He later worked with MacMillan on The House of Birds and Mayerling. Also while at Sadler's Wells he met the ballerina Elaine Fifield whom he married but later divorced. In 1960 he joined the Royal Ballet as chief conductor and while with the Royal he arranged many ballet scores, notably that for Frederick Ashton's La Fille mal gardee and, later, that for Ashton's film ballet Tales of Beatrix Potter.

Lanchbery had his first contact with the Australian Ballet in 1970 during the company's tour to the United States, and he was resident musical director of the Australian Ballet from 1972 to 1977. Before pursuing a freelance career in the 1980s he was briefly musical director of American Ballet Theatre during the directorship of Mikhail Baryshnikov. During his freelance career he was principal conductor at many of the world's leading opera houses and continued to work with the Australian Ballet over the course of his career.

Lanchbery was perhaps best known in the later years of his career for his arrangements, which include those for Rudolf Nureyev's Don Quixote and La Bayadere, Ronald Hynd's The Merry Widow, Robert Ray's The Sentimental Bloke, Ben Stevenson's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Dracula, and The Snow Maiden and Stanton Welch's Madame Butterfly. He also wrote the score for the popular film about life as a dancer, The Turning Point.

Lanchbery was awarded honours in Russia and Sweden, and the Order of the British Empire in 1991. He became an Australian citizen in 2002. He was posthumously inducted into Australian Dance Awards Hall of Fame in 2005.

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Articles - New York Public Library Dance Collection
Pictures - Picture Australia