Celebrating Black History: Calvin E. Simmons (Conducting '73)

Born in San Francisco, California, on April 27, 1950, Calvin Eugene Simmons showed prodigious musical talent at a very young age. As a child, he took piano lessons from his mother, Mattie Pearl Simmons, and joined the San Francisco Boys Chorus at age 9, eventually conducting the ensemble at age 11 under the encouragement and guidance of music teacher and choral director Madi Bacon. In 1970, he entered Curtis, where he studied piano under Rudolf Serkin and conducting under Max Rudolf, withdrawing in 1972 for a conducting opportunity on the West Coast. He was awarded a certificate in conducting in 1973, appearing in that year’s graduating class photo.

Mr. Simmons returned home to California and became the repetiteur and assistant conductor of the San Francisco Opera from 1972 to 1975, winning the Kurt Herbert Adler Award. He made his formal debut conducting Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème with revered Romanian soprano Ileana Cotrubas as Mimì. His subsequent work with the company on a production of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk drew national attention and garnered further conducting opportunities.

Listen to a San Francisco Opera lunchtime panel discussion with Calvin Simmons (conductor), Gerald Freedman (stage director), and Richard Rodzindki (whose father Artur Rodzinski was instrumental in bringing this opera to the U.S.) discuss Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk HERE.

From 1974 to 1975, he was a member of the Glyndebourne music staff in the United Kingdom, conducting performances of Mozart’s Così fan tutte that year and returning in 1976 and 1977 for four additional productions and 37 performances. After working as assistant conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta, Mr. Simmons became musical director of the Oakland Symphony in 1978 at age 28, leading the ensemble for four years as the first African American conductor of a major U.S. orchestra. He continued to conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic on occasion, both at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and at the Hollywood Bowl, with engagements that ranged from concerts featuring artists such as American jazz legend Carmen McRae, to conducting Gustav Holst’s The Planets and works by English composer William Walton.

In 1978, Mr. Simmons served as the music director of the Ojai Festival for one season, followed by his house debut at The Metropolitan Opera, conducting Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel. He returned the following season to lead the orchestra in eighteen additional performances of the opera and garnered a reputation as a highly-esteemed opera coach.

Tragically, Mr. Simmons drowned at age 32 in a canoeing accident on Connery Pond, just east of Lake Placid, New York. His final concerts were three performances of the Mozart Requiem in the summer of 1982 with the Masterworks Chorale and the Midsummer Mozart Festival Orchestra. He was scheduled to conduct The Magic Flute at New York City Opera the month following his death. Calvin Simmons’s meteoric rise was as extraordinary as his musicianship. Even though his life was cut short, he still left behind a magnificent legacy that paved the way for generations of Black classical musicians.

Praise for Calvin Simmons:

“Calvin Simmons was an extraordinary human being and a superb musician. His story is one that should inspire people, especially young people, to go for the gold ring.” —the late Beverly Sills, opera singer and chair of Lincoln Center.

“Exequien for Calvin Simmons was composed in August of 1982, shortly after I learned of the death of Calvin Simmons at 32 from drowning. It was not a piece I planned. I was composing a scene in a ballet, where the protagonist enters the underworld, but the shade I kept meeting was Calvin, a hero of our time, not of ancient times. I composed this Exequien as a going-out for him, based on that ‘meeting’; the music shared material with the ballet but does not belong in it.

All memorials are in some way self-serving, since we are also feeling sorry for ourselves, I first encountered Calvin when he called and asked for a piece to play with his Oakland Symphony. He is still the only conductor of a full time professional orchestra with whom I have had this experience (it became a yearly event), and when he did perform my music, he did with devotion and flair. He established links to many composers, to young American performers, and to new listeners. He lived joyously, with abandon, for the present. Even my short pieces, so immediate in response, couldn’t escape his buoyancy, and became a measure for slow dance rather than a dirge.” —program notes by composer John Harbison

Please visit the Curtis Institute of Music Open Archives and Recitals (CIMOAR). Learn more about Curtis’s library and archives HERE.

Photo Credits: 1.) Oakland Symphony; Jack Mitchell. 2.)  “Wayback Machine: Oakland Symphony’s Calvin Simmons dies in 1982.” San Francisco Gate, Johnny Miller, August 16, 2007. 3.) Graduation photo from the Curtis Archives and Special Collections. 4.) “Streaming the First Century: Session 1: Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, 1981, San Francisco Opera. 5.) President and General Manager of the Oakland Symphony, Harold Lawrence, with Calvin Simmons; Mary Morris Lawrence, Classical California KUSC. 6. “The African American Performer on the San Francisco Stage,” Museum of Performance + Design.