Mengelberg, Karel (EN)

Mengelberg Karel Willem Joseph, *18 July 1902 Utrecht, †11 July 1984 Amsterdam, Dutch composer, conductor and music critic, nephew of Willem. He studied in Amsterdam (composition with W. Pijper) and at the conservatory in Berlin (conducting with H. Scherchen). From 1927 to 1930 he was active as conductor of the orchestra of the theatre in Greifswald. He headed the music department of the Deutschlandsender radio broadcasting station in Berlin between 1930 and 1933, then was conductor of the Barcelona city orchestra and music director of the Kyiv film studio. He was active from 1938 onwards in Amsterdam as a conductor, teacher, and music critic. He is the author of many arrangements of film and theatre music as well as orchestral and stage works, of which the ballet Signalen (1935) and the Concert voor hoorn en orkest [‘Concert for horn and orchestra’] (1950) were awarded the Amsterdam Prize. His son Misha (*5 June 1935 Kyiv, †3 March 2017 Amsterdam), a graduate of the conservatoire in The Hague (1964), was a well-known jazz pianist and composer of orchestral and chamber works published by Donemus (including Anatoloose 1968, Onderweg 1973).