Reginald Foort
| Reginald Foort | |
|---|---|
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Foort in 1932
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| Background information | |
| Also known as | Reggie |
| Born |
23 January 1893 Daventry, England |
| Died | 22 May 1980 (aged 87) Pasadena, California, United States |
| Occupation(s) | Organist |
| Instruments | Cinema organ/ theatre organ |
Reginald John Foort (23 January 1893 – 22 May 1980) was a cinema organist and theatre organist. He was the first official BBC Staff Theatre Organist from 1936 to 1938, during which time he made 405 broadcasts on the organ at St George's Hall, Langham Place. 'Reggie' was a hugely popular broadcaster in his heyday in the late 1930s in Britain and later settled in the USA where he similarly enjoyed an illustrious career performing and recording.
Reginald Foort was born in Daventry, England, on 23 January 1893. His father was a church organist (leading Foort to joke later that he was 'born an organist'). Foort learnt the piano from the age of seven and took up the organ at eleven after his family moved to Rugby, studying with Basil Johnson, Master of Music at Rugby School. Foort became both an Associate and a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists (FRCO) by the age of only 17 under the tutelage of Sir Walter Parratt and began his career as organist at St Mary's Bryanston Square, London. Having served in the Royal Navy during World War I, he worked as a piano accompanist for silent films in the 1920s, from which it was a natural progression to become a cinema organist.
Foort's first performance on a Wurlitzer was at a theatre in Edinburgh, and a few weeks later he took up a job as organist at the New Gallery Kinema, Regent Street, London, where in the late 1920s he passed what he described as 'one of the happiest periods of my life', popularising the theatre organ as a 'one-man orchestra' through broadcasts and recordings of his performances on the cinema's F2/S Wurlitzer. This was followed by spells at the Paramount Theatre (Paris); the London Palladium, and, with Sandy MacPherson, the Empire, Leicester Square.
In 1930 Foort became solo organist at the Regal, Marble Arch, performing on a Christie organ. In 1932 he was appointed the first resident organist at the Regal, Kingston-upon-Thames, and advised on the installation of theatre organs in a number of regional cinemas in collaboration with the organ builder Peter Conacher of Huddersfield. During a visit to the USA in 1935 he performed on the 4/36 organ at the Paramount Theatre in New York. Touring back home in Europe, he was warmly received at the Jerusalemkirk in Denmark owing to a popular following from his radio broadcasts. He did a five-month spell at the City Theatre, Amsterdam, and broadcast on the Dutch radio station Radio Hilversum, returning to London to take up a post as organist of the four-manual Compton organ at the Paramount Theatre, Tottenham Court Road.
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