Steven Lipsitt Remembers Harry Ellis Dickson

The Boston Classical Orchestra was privileged to have a special relationship with Harry Ellis Dickson these past twenty years, having benefited from his service as music director from 1983-1999 and as music director laureate subsequently. Although he did not found the orchestra, he did build it: under Harry's guidance the BCO grew from playing three single programs annually to offering five programs, each played twice; he initiated our youth and outreach programs; he attracted soloists of the highest artistic level; and he established the precedent of offering occasional neo-classical works and lesser-known Classical compositions alongside the most beloved and popular music of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, and their contemporaries.

Most importantly and characteristically, Harry crafted a model for the BCO's Faneuil Hall concerts which remains intact today: great music for chamber orchestra, played well by the city's finest professional freelance musicians, offered honestly and unpretentiously, introduced from the podium with wit and affection.

Harry's 65-year musical career in Boston certainly brought him before an enormous and diverse public — his work at Symphony Hall especially exposed thousands of concertgoers, young and old, to the palpable joys of live orchestral music. But nobody felt closer to him than his Boston Classical Orchestra audiences at Faneuil Hall: the intimacy of the space, Harry's energetic presence and winning manner, the experience of hearing a Boston legend doing his best work inside a Boston landmark — these were treasurable events, and they made Harry's audience feel that they knew him, and he knew them.

We honor Harry every time we play. He is irreplaceable, and we miss him.

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