Hugo Rignold

Hugo Henry Rignold (15 May 1905 – 30 May 1976) was an English conductor and violinist, who is best remembered as Musical Director of the Royal Ballet (1957-1960) and conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (1960-1968).

After playing the violin and recording with many jazz and dance bands, and leading his own London Casino Orchestra, in the 1920s and 1930s, during World War II, Rignold began to conduct classical orchestras. Thereafter, he conducted opera at Covent Garden and then the Liverpool Philharmonic, beginning in the late 1940s, followed by the Royal Ballet and his long tenure with Birmingham.

Born in Kingston upon Thames, England, the son of conductor Hugo Charles Rignold and opera singer Agnes Mann, Rignold was taken to Canada when his parents emigrated to Winnipeg in 1910. He began studying the violin as a child with John Waterhouse in Winnipeg and played in the orchestra of the Winnipeg Theatre. After returning to England in 1921, he studied at the Royal Academy of Music and then worked as a blacksmith for a time.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Rignold played violin with many jazz and dance bands of the day, including those of Mantovani, Jack Hylton, Jack Harris, Fred Hartley, Ambrose, Lew Stone and Jay Wilbur. Rignold was highly regarded as a jazz player. In 1936 The Gramophone magazine said of him, "With the possible exception of the Negro artist, Eddie South, and our own Eric Siday, who is abroad, there have been only two violinists who have hitherto meant anything to jazz — Venuti, of course, and more recently the French musician Stephane Grappelly (sic). To my mind Hugo Rignold is a greater artist than any of them." Rignold went on to lead his own London Casino Orchestra.

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