John Hollingsworth

John Hollingsworth (20 March 1916 – 29 December 1963) was a British orchestral conductor prominent in the concert hall, the ballet and opera theatre, and the film studio. He was Sir Malcolm Sargent’s assistant conductor at The Proms, where he conducted over 60 times including some world and British premieres. He also conducted at the Royal Opera and Sadlers Wells, and became associated with music for British horror films of the 1950s and early 1960s.

John Ernest Hollingsworth was born in Enfield, Middlesex in 1916. He was educated at Bradfield College, Berkshire, and the Guildhall School of Music. When he conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in 1937, at the age of 21, he was the youngest man up to that time ever to conduct that orchestra. He later set similar records with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and National Symphony Orchestra.

Still only 23 when World War II broke out, he volunteered for the Royal Air Force and served as assistant conductor of the Royal Air Force Band and associate conductor of the Royal Air Force Symphony Orchestra. He also worked with the Crown Film Unit, which was producing documentary films to bolster the war effort. He took the RAF Symphony Orchestra to the Potsdam Conference for six concerts; the leaders Winston Churchill, Harry S. Truman and Joseph Stalin were given the opportunity to make their requests, and Hollingsworth was surprised when Stalin chose Borodin’s 1st Symphony instead of a contemporary Soviet work.

On discharge in 1945, he joined the Rank Organisation under Muir Mathieson. He was the uncredited associate musical director for Brief Encounter (1945). His earliest screen credits were as conductor on A Piece of Cake (1946), When the Bough Breaks (1947), and They Made Me a Fugitive (1947). He was assistant music director for the William Walton score for Laurence Olivier's Hamlet (1948). He combined this film work with conducting at the Royal Ballet. He left Rank in 1949 to become music director of the Central Office of Information, a documentary unit, and in 1950 also became conductor of the Sadler's Wells Ballet.

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