Youngest Conductor

The youngest full-fledged symphony conductor in the U. S. is chubby, red-headed James Kelley Guthrie, 22. Last week he mounted the conductor's stand and, before 5,000 people in the Los Angeles Shrine Auditorium, guided the new Hollywood Grand Opera Association through its first presentation, Aida. Except for the moment when four terrified white horses seemed ready to jump into the orchestra pit, the opera proceeded without a hitch and made San Francisco's grizzled Conductor Alfred Hertz exclaim: "He showed a mastery of musical forces quite unusual at his early age. He has quite a career ahead of him!"

Son of a San Bernardino publisher (James A. Guthrie), James Kelley Guthrie early took lessons on the flute, "not because I was particularly interested in it but because it was expected of me." A trip to San Francisco, where he heard Hertz lead the Symphony Orchestra, fanned his interest. At 15 he rounded up 60 professional, amateur and retired musicians, hired 30 more from Los Angeles, to make the San Bernardino Community Orchestra. Two years later he began to lead it. Meantime he was in demand for local theatre orchestras, went on tour playing and conducting for Actress Olga Baclanova. In 1931 he entered Southern California's tiny Redlands University to study English and music theory.

At college, young Guthrie conducted the Riverside Community opera through 25 or 30 operas every year, did little studying, less sleeping. During vacations he worked on his father's newspaper, carrying copy, covering sports and police news. When an unknown man was found beaten to death in a shack, Police Reporter Guthrie discovered his name & address, discovered next the lunatic guilty of the crime, was made an honorary deputy sheriff of San Bernardino County.

Five months ago Impresario Maurice Frank persuaded W. A. Conant, Beverly Hills real estate broker, and wealthy, retired Opera Singer Mme Emma Loeffler de Zaruba to help build a grand opera association in Los Angeles. At the in stance of Mme de Zaruba, a little doubt fully, Impresario Frank picked young James Guthrie to conduct. On the crucial night, most of the town's topnotch musicians were tied up with the Philharmonic.

Guthrie scraped together an 82-piece orchestra, and with a single rehearsal led it irreproachably through the opera, took a total of 40 bows by the final curtain. Well-pleased, Impresario Frank promised that Guthrie will lead an opera every month, the next to be Samson & Delilah. Determined Guthrie: "If I have anything to say about it, it will be sung in English. All American opera should be sung in English. What good are words if people can't understand them?"

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