Sir Clive Gillinson - Executive & Artistic Director, Carnegie Hall.

Sir Clive Gillinson was born in Bangalore, India, in 1946; his mother was a professional cellist and his father, a businessman, also wrote and painted. Sir Clive began studying the cello at the age of eleven and played in the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. He went to London University to study mathematics, but realizing that he wanted to make music his life, entered the Royal Academy of Music, where he gained a Recital Diploma and won the top cello prize. After attending the Royal Academy of Music, he became a member of London's Philharmonia Orchestra.

He joined the London Symphony Orchestra cello section in 1970 and was elected to the Board of Directors of the self-governing orchestra in 1976, also serving as Finance Director. In 1984 he was asked by the Board to become Managing Director of the LSO, a position he held until becoming the Executive and Artistic Director of Carnegie Hall in 2005.

Under his leadership, the LSO initiated some of that city’s most innovative and successful artistic festivals, working with many of today's leading artists. In the international touring arena, the LSO established an annual residency in New York from 1997 and was a founding partner in the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan, in 1990, with Leonard Bernstein and Michael Tilson Thomas. Sir Clive believes in taking great music to the society at large. In this area, his initiatives with the London Symphony Orchestra included the development of the LSO Discovery music education program, reaching over 30,000 people of all ages annually; and the creation of LSO St. Luke’s, the UBS and LSO Music Education Center, which involved the restoration and reconstruction of St. Luke’s, a magnificent, but previously derelict 18th-century church. He also created LSO Live, the orchestra's award-winning international CD label.

Sir Clive served as Chairman of the Association of British Orchestras; was one of the founding Trustees of the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts; and was founding Chairman of the Management Committee of the Clore Leadership Programme. He was awarded the CBE (Commander of the British Empire) in the 1999 New Year Honours List and received the 2004 Making Music Sir Charles Grove Prize for his outstanding contribution to British music. He was appointed Knight Bachelor in the Queen's Birthday Honours List 2005, the only orchestra manager ever to be honored with a Knighthood. He received an Honorary Doctorate from the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia in May 2007. He also serves on the Honorary Board of the Brubeck Institute of the University of the Pacific.

He and his wife, Penny, have three children, Sarah, Miriam, and David.

External Links

[1]Carnegie Hall

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