Rudolph Dunbar

Rudolph Dunbar (26 November 1907 – 10 June 1988) was a Guyanese conductor, clarinetist, and composer, as well as being a jazz musician of note in the 1920s. Leaving British Guiana at the age of 20, he had settled in England by 1931, and subsequently worked in other parts of Europe but lived most of his later years in London. Among numerous "firsts", he was the first black man to conduct the London Philharmonic Orchestra (1942), the first black man to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic (1945) and the first black man to conduct orchestras in Poland (1959) and Russia (1964). Dunbar also worked as a journalist and a war correspondent.

Dunbar was born in Nabacalis, British Guiana. He began his musical career playing clarinet with the British Guiana militia band at the age of 14, before moving to New York at the age of 20. He studied at the Institute of Musical Art (now Juilliard), and while in New York was also involved with the Harlem jazz scene, performing in 1924 with the Harlem Orchestra, and befriending the composer William Grant Still who played piano in the orchestra.

In 1925 Dunbar moved to Paris and between 1927 and 1929 attended the Sorbonne, where he studied conducting with Philippe Gaubert, composition with Paul Vidal, and the clarinet with Louis Cahuzac. According to author John Cowley, Dunbar was in England in 1927, when he joined the Plantation Orchestra for a road tour of the show Blackbirds of 1927. Dunbar also spent time studying in Vienna with Felix Weingartner. His hopes of a degree were ended by the death of his father.

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