Calvin E. Simmons
(1950 – 1982)
American symphony orchestra conductor. He was the first African-American conductor of a major orchestra.
He was a conductor of the Oakland Symphony Orchestra. He became director of the Orchestra at age 28 and was the second black conductor of a major orchestra. 1,2 He led the Oakland Orchestra for four years.
Sculpture of Calvin Simmons at City Hall in 2012.
Calvin was born in San Francisco in 1950 to Henry Calvin and Mattie Pearl Simmons.
Music was a part of his life from the beginning. He learned how to play the piano from his Mother.
By age 11, he was conducting the San Francisco Boys Chorus, started by Madi Bacon, of which he had been a member.
Note: All events leading up to his death is featured in news articles it is as follows including the rest of the bio of his death and legacy.
The Maestro Kid
He was the assistant conductor with the San Francisco Opera from 1972 to 1975, winning the Kurt Herbert Adler Award.
He remained active at the San Francisco Opera for all his adult life, supporting General Director Kurt Herbert Adler, first as a repetiteur and then as a member of the conducting staff. He made his formal debut conducting Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème with Ileana Cotrubas. His later work on a production of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District drew national attention.
In 1979 he conducted the premiere of Menotti’s La Loca in San Diego.
He made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera, conducting Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, returning the following year. He was on the musical staff at Glyndebourne from 1974 to 1978.
Simmons became musical director of the Oakland Symphony Orchestra at the age of 28 in 1978. He was one of the early African-American conductors of a major orchestra.
His debut audition was in early 1978.
His final concerts were three performances of the Requiem of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the summer of 1982 with the Masterworks Chorale and the Midsummer Mozart Festival Orchestra.
he Oakland Symphony Orchestra was reorganized in July 1988 as the Oakland East Bay Symphony Orchestra. Simmons was honored by the naming of the Calvin Simmons Theatre at the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center in Oakland, California. The Calvin Simmons Middle School in Oakland was named for him, but has since changed its name to United For Success Academy. Simmons is also the namesake of the grand ballroom of the Oakland Marriott Hotel.
His death inspired Lou Harrison to compose Elegy, To The Memory Of Calvin Simmons; Michael Tippett to compose The Blue Guitar, a sonata for solo guitar; and Robert Hughes to compose Sop’o muerte se cande, for high tenor and orchestra (1983, 2013). John Harbison wrote Exequien for Calvin Simmons. Simmons conducted Harbison’s Violin Concerto shortly before his death.
Simmons died in a canoeing accident at age 32 near Lake Placid in New York. After a large public funeral at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral, he was buried in Cypress Lawn Memorial Park in Colma, California. At a memorial concert held in Oakland’s Paramount Theater a few weeks later, he was remembered for his talent, his quick wit and sense of fun, and his ability to get on top of any score quickly.
There was a memorial service on September 07, 1982, at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco; more than 2200 people attended.
There was a memorial concert on September 20, 1982, at the Paramount Theatre. He was buried in Cypress Lawn Memorial Park in Colma, California.
Calvin Simmons Middle School is named for him, as is the theater at the Kaiser Convention Center. He is one of the people featured on the mural “Grand Performance” on Grand Avenue, under the I-580 overpass near MacArthur. He’s on the left side, an area of the mural that’s most exposed to the weather.