News: July 2000

Conductor Richard Dufallo Dies at 67

Richard Dufallo Photo taken by Miram Hannecart

ichard Dufallo, a conductor who championed contemporary music, died of stomach cancer on June 16 at his home in Denton, Texas. He was 67.

Dufallo was well respected for his command of the classical repertory, but it was his expertise in interpreting new music for which he was best known. He gave premieres of works by composers including Iannis Xenakis, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Jacob Druckman, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Krzysztof Penderecki, George Crumb and Aribert Reimann.

During the 1970's, he directed the contemporary music series at both The Juilliard School and the Aspen Music Festival, where he came into contact with many young performers. These two perches allowed him to exert considerable indirect influence over the programming of new music in the United States. He also worked hard to promote American works in Europe, and gave the European premieres of works by Charles Ives, Carl Ruggles, Jacob Druckman and Elliott Carter as well as younger composers like Robert Beaser.

Dufallo was born in Whiting, Indiana, on Jan. 30, 1933, and studied the clarinet at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago. He later studied with Lukas Foss at the University of California, Los Angeles. Foss soon invited Dufallo to become the clarinetist in his Improvisation Chamber Ensemble.

Dufallo's conducting career began in the mid-1960s when he was named associate conductor at the Buffalo Philharmonic while Foss was music director there. Soon thereafter he joined the faculty of the Center of Creative and Performing Arts at the State University of New York. He also studied with the conductor William Steinberg at a New York Philharmonic seminar for conductors. In 1965 Leonard Bernstein appointed him to a two-year position as an assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic, which he conducted on an Asian tour in 1967.

After his positions in New York and Buffalo, Dufallo appeared as guest conductor with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, among others. In 1969 he studied with Pierre Boulez and was also appointed to succeed Darius Milhaud as artistic director of the Conference on Contemporary Music at the Aspen Festival.

In 1970 he made his European debut with the Orchestre Téléphonique Français of Paris. Other European orchestras he conducted include the Berlin Philharmonic, the London Symphony and the National Orchestra of Spain, and he maintained particularly strong ties with the orchestras of the Netherlands. He made his debut with Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1975, toured with the Netherlands Wind Ensemble and the Dutch Radio Philharmonic and made recordings with the Rotterdam Philharmonic. In 1980 he was appointed music director of the Gelders Orchestra of Arnhem.

His recordings include works by Gershwin, Bernstein, Copland, Stravinsky, Takemitsu, Luigi Nono and David Del Tredici. He also published a book, Trackings: Composers Speak With Richard Dufallo, which included his interviews with 26 composers. Dufallo's last project was a contribution to a 26-part series for Dutch television called Of Beauty and Consolation.

He is survived by his wife, the pianist Pamela Mia Paul; his two sons, Basil, of Seattle, and Cornelius, of New York; a daughter, René Kirby of Los Angeles; and a sister, Kathryn Traczyk of East Chicago IN.