James De Priest

James Anderson DePreist (November 21, 1936 – February 8, 2013) was an American conductor. DePreist was one of the first African-American conductors on the world stage. He was the director emeritus of conducting and orchestral studies at The Juilliard School and laureate music director of the Oregon Symphony at the time of his death.

DePreist was born in Philadelphia in 1936. He was the nephew of contralto Marian Anderson. DePreist studied composition with Vincent Persichetti at the Philadelphia Conservatory while earning a bachelor's degree at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a master's degree from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

In 1962, while on a State Department tour in Bangkok, Thailand, DePreist contracted poliomyelitis. However he recovered sufficiently, allowing him to enter and to ultimately claim first prize in the Dimitri Mitropoulos International Conducting Competition. He was then chosen by Leonard Bernstein to become assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic during the 1965–66 season. DePreist made his highly acclaimed European debut with the Rotterdam Philharmonic in 1969, then made appearances with other European orchestras in Amsterdam, Belgium, Berlin, Italy, Munich, Stockholm and Stuttgart. In 1971, Antal Doráti named him associate conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. In 1976, DePreist was appointed music director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec, a position he held until 1983.

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