Name: Humphrey Burton
Field: Broadcaster
Productions:
An Audience With Humphrey Burton
After Dinner Speaker
Biography: Humphrey Burton read music and history at Cambridge, where he conducted the University Music Cluh choir. He joined the BBC in 1955 as a studio manager specialising in music programmes, transferring to television three years later. After five years on the arts magazine Monitor he spearheaded the expansion of cultural programmes which followed the opening of BBC-2 in 1964 and was appointed the first Head of the Music and Arts Department. Among the titles he and his producers pioneered were In Rehearsal, Master Class, Conversations with Glenn Gould and Workshop. In 1965 he received British Academys top award for innovative programming.
Between 1967 and 1975 Humphrey worked as a founder member for London Weekend Television, first as Head of Drama., Arts and Music and then as editor and host of the arts magazine Aquarius, for which he was awarded the Royal Television Societys silver award as a presenter. In 1970 he produced and directed (for the American network CBS) the Emmy winning Beethovens Birthday: a bi-centennial tribute. This was among the first of nearly two hundred music programmes he made over the next two decades with the composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein.
From 1975 to 1981 Humphrey Burton served a second term as the BBCs Head of Music and Arts, inaugurating such long-running series as Arena and Young Musician of the Year He retired from management when he was 50 and has since combined a freelance career as a presenter and director of televised operas and concerts with work as an impresario and writer. In the 1990s he directed seven opera telecasts from Glyndebourne and was in charge of the first opera relay from the new Covent Garden, Verdis Falstaff.
Humphrey took up orchestral conducting late in life, making his debut at the Royal Albert Hall on his 70th birthday in 2001, with a critically-acclaimed performance of Verdis Requiem which raised £75,000 for the Prostate Research charity. He has published major biographies of Bernstein, Yehudi Menuhin and William Walton and has been a regular contributor to both Radio 3 and Classic FM. He was made a CBE in the Millennium honours list.
As a programme maker, Humphrey has won four Emmies and three BAFTAs Among his credits are The Golden Ring, The Making of West Side Story, Conversations with Glenn Gould and 168 editions of the arts magazine, Aquarius, for LWT.