Bryden Thomson

Bryden Thomson (16 July 1928 , died 14 November 1991) was a Scottish conductor. Bryden ("Jack") Thomson was born in Ayr. He led several British orchestras, including the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra and the Ulster Orchestra from 1977 to 1985. He was also briefly chief conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, being only the second Scotsman to hold that post. Between 1984 and 1987 he was principal conductor of the Irish RTÉ Symphony Orchestra (now the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra). Thomson was a committed interpreter of British music: his complete cycle of the symphonies of Arnold Bax for Chandos Records is highly regarded, and he also recorded Vaughan Williams' orchestral music. His last recordings, of the Symphony No. 4 and Symphony No. 6 of Carl Nielsen are widely considered by critics to be amongst the very best interpretations of those works. Thomson's recordings of Arnold Bax's tone poems and other orchestral works have recently been re-issued on remastered CDs. Thomson died in Dublin. He bequeathed his collection of scores to the Bryden Thomson Trust which supports young conductors. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.