| Name:
| Jeffrey Philip Tate
| | Skills:
| conductor
| | Phone:
| +41 1 821 8957
| | Fax:
| +41 1 821 0127
| | Address:
| Rütistrasse 52, Zürich-Gockhausen CH-8044, Switzerland
| |
| | Jeffrey Philip Tate, C.B.E., was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England on 28 April 1943 and grew up in the arts-rich community of Farnham, Surrey, where his early talents for singing and piano playing emerged. As a boy, he performed with and was influenced by such musical greats as Benjamin Britten, Peter Pears and Gian-Carlo Menotti. However, Tate is also disabled, so his parents discouraged him from a career in the arts. Instead, he studied medicine at Cambridge University and at London's St. Thomas' Hospital where he specialized in eye surgery.
After becoming a doctor, Tate succumbed to music's irresistible lure and, following a year's study at the London Opera Centre, accepted a position as a répétiteur at the Royal Opera Covent Garden. He coached singers for seven years before making his professional conducting debut at Sweden's Göteborg Opera. In fewer than ten years he became the English Chamber Orchestra's first principal conductor and returned to Covent Garden as its principal conductor as well. Since then he has held positions as music director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, principal guest conductor of the Geneva [Switzerland] Opera and more recently (1988-1998) as principal guest conductor of the French National Opera.
Today Tate is principal guest conductor of the Italian National Radio Orchestra. He has two of Wagner's Ring cycles to his credit: the first at Paris' Châtelet and the second when he brought Australia's first complete German-language Ring to Adelaide in 1998. An acclaimed interpreter of German opera and symphonic repertoire, the maestro lifts his baton from Berlin to Buenos Aires, London to Los Angeles, and from Tel Aviv to Tokyo. His discography numbers more than fifty recordings.
When not on the podium Tate involves himself with disability and/or music-related charities. He is also an inveterate reader and tireless explorer of museums, a student of ecclesiastical architecture, a collector of early eighteenth-century porcelain and a gourmet cook.
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