• Conductor and Violinist Bernard Johan Herman Haitink, 1929
• Pianist, Conductor and Composer André George Previn, 1929

   

Haitink became second conductor of the Netherlands Radio Union Orchestra in 1955. He took the post of chief conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic in 1957. His conducting debut with the Concertgebouw Orchestra was on 7 November 1956, substituting for Carlo Maria Giulini. After the sudden death of Eduard van Beinum, Haitink was named first conductor of the Concertgebouw Orchestra on 1 September 1959. He became principal conductor of the Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1961, and shared that position jointly with Eugen Jochum until 1963, when Haitink became sole principal conductor. With the Concertgebouw Orchestra, Haitink made many recordings for the Philips label, and later Decca and EMI Classics, and toured widely with the orchestra.

In the early 1980s, Haitink threatened to resign his Concertgebouw post in protest at threatened reductions to its subsidy from the Dutch government, which could potentially have led to the dismissal of 23 musicians from the orchestra. The financial situation was eventually settled, and Haitink remained as chief conductor until 1988. In 1999, he was named the honorary conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Outside of the Netherlands, Haitink was principal conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra from 1967 to 1979. Haitink also served as the music director at Glyndebourne Opera from 1978 to 1988.

He held the same position at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, from 1987 to 2002, where he was praised for his musicianship, but received criticism for the degree of attachment to the entire organization.

From 2002 to 2004, he was chief conductor of the Dresden Staatskapelle. His original contract with Dresden was through 2006, but Haitink resigned in 2004 over disputes with the Staatskapelle's Intendant, Gerd Uecker, on the orchestra's choice of successor.

Haitink served as principal guest conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1995 to 2004, when he took on the new title of conductor emeritus. In addition, he has appeared with l'Orchestre National de France and London Symphony Orchestra. In the early 2000s, he recorded the complete Beethoven and Brahms symphony cycles with the London Symphony Orchestra live in concert; the releases were part of the orchestra's influential venture into self produced recordings on the "LSO Live" label. The Beethoven cycle in particular won several awards. Haitink has also continued his long associations with the Vienna Philharmonic and Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Haitink is an honorary member of the Berlin Philharmonic.

In April 2006, after an acclaimed two week engagement in March 2006 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO), the CSO appointed Haitink to the newly created position of principal conductor, effective as of the 2006 - 2007 season. The duration of the contract is four years. Haitink had declined an offer from the CSO to be music director, citing his age. With respect to this contract, Haitink stated that "every conductor, including myself, has a sell-by date." He concluded his Chicago principal conductorship in June 2010, with a series of concerts of the complete Beethoven symphonies and the orchestra awarding to him the Theodore Thomas Medallion.

In 1977, he was awarded an honorary knighthood in the Order of the British Empire (KBE). In 2002, he was created an honorary Companion of Honour (CH). Musical America named Haitink its 2007 Musician of the Year.

Haitink has conducted and recorded a wide variety of repertoire, with the complete symphonies of Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Bruckner, Mahler, Shostakovich and Vaughan Williams, and the complete piano concertos of Beethoven and Brahms with Claudio Arrau notable among his recordings. Haitink has made many recordings for several labels, including Philips Records, EMI Classics, Columbia Records, LSO Live, KCO Live, and CSO Resound. Other recordings include the complete orchestral works of Debussy, the two symphonies of Elgar, the three Mozart / Da Ponte operas, and Wagner's complete opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen.

Haitink formally stated in a 2004 article that he would no longer conduct opera, but he made exceptions in 2007, directing three performances of Parsifal in Zurich in March and April and five of Pelléas et Mélisande in Paris (Théâtre des Champs - Élysées) in June. He stated in 2004 that he did not plan to conduct again at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden. However, an April 2007 announcement stated that Haitink would return to the Royal Opera in December 2007, with the same Zurich production of Parsifal, and he fulfilled this engagement.

Haitink has five children from his first marriage to Marjolein Snijder. He and his fourth wife, the former Patricia Bloomfield, a barrister and past viola player in the Covent Garden Opera orchestra, reside in Lucerne, Switzerland.

Previn was born in Berlin, Germany, the son of Charlotte (née Epstein) and Jack Previn, who was a lawyer, judge and music teacher. He is said to be "a distant relative of" the composer Gustav Mahler. The year of his birth is uncertain. Whilst most published reports give 1929, Previn himself has stated that 1930 is his birth year. This situation is a consequence of his the family losing Previn's birth certificate when they left Germany in 1938. His elder brother was director Steve Previn. The Previn family, which was Jewish, emigrated to the United States in 1939 to escape the Nazi regime in Germany.

In 1939, his family moved to Los Angeles, where his great - uncle, Charles Previn, was music director of Universal Studios. André grew up in Los Angeles and became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1943. At Previn's 1946 graduation from Beverly Hills High School he played a musical duet with Richard M. Sherman; Previn played the piano, accompanying Sherman (who played flute). He first came to prominence by arranging and composing Hollywood film scores in 1948. Coincidentally, 21 years later, both composers won Oscars for different films, both winning in musical categories.

In the mid to late 1950s, and more recently, Previn toured and recorded as a jazz pianist. In the 1950s, mainly recording for Contemporary Records, he worked with Shelly Manne, Leroy Vinnegar, Benny Carter and others. An album he recorded with Manne and Vinnegar of songs from My Fair Lady was a best seller. As a solo jazz pianist, Previn largely devoted himself to interpreting the works of major songwriters such as Jerome Kern (recorded in 1959), Frederick Loewe, Vernon Duke (recorded in 1958), and Harold Arlen (recorded in 1960). Previn made two albums with Dinah Shore as arranger, conductor and accompanist in 1960, and another, the unjustly neglected "Duet", with Doris Day in 1961. He made appearances on The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford as well as The Dinah Shore Chevy Show. He collaborated with Julie Andrews on a collection of Christmas carols in 1966, focusing on rarely heard carols. This popular album has been reissued many times over the years and is now available on CD. His main influences as a jazz pianist include Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson and Horace Silver. Previn has also recorded classical piano compositions by Mozart, Gershwin, Poulenc, Shostakovich and others.

In 1967, Previn succeeded John Barbirolli as music director of the Houston Symphony Orchestra. In 1968, he began his tenure as principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), serving in that post until 1979. During his LSO tenure, he and the LSO appeared on the BBC Television program André Previn's Music Night. From 1976 to 1984, he was music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (PSO) and, in turn, had another television series with the PSO entitled Previn and the Pittsburgh. He was also principal conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra from 1985 to 1988.

In 1985, he became music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Although Previn's tenure with the orchestra was musically satisfactory, other conductors including Kurt Sanderling, Simon Rattle and Esa - Pekka Salonen, did a better job at selling out concerts. Previn clashed frequently with Ernest Fleischmann (the orchestra's Executive VP and General Manager), most notably when Fleischmann failed to consult him before naming Salonen as Principal Guest Conductor of the orchestra, complete with a tour of Japan. Because of Previn's objections, Salonen's title and Japanese tour were withdrawn; however, shortly thereafter, in April 1989, Previn resigned. Four months later, Salonen was named Music Director Designate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, officially taking the post of Music Director in October 1992.

Previn has composed film scores and other musical works, including concertos for piano, violin, cello and guitar. He has also adapted and conducted the music for several films, some of them stage - to - film adaptations, such as My Fair Lady, Kismet, Porgy and Bess, and Paint Your Wagon. Several were written especially for film, including the Academy Award winning Gigi. Several of the film scores were collaborations with his second wife, Dory Previn.

In later years, he has concentrated on composing classical music. He collaborated with Tom Stoppard on Every Good Boy Deserves Favour,  a play with substantial musical content, which was first performed in London in 1977 with Previn conducting the LSO. His first opera, A Streetcar Named Desire, premiered at the San Francisco Opera in 1998. His second opera, Brief Encounter, based on the 1945 movie of the same name, was premiered at Houston Grand Opera on May 1, 2009. His numerous other classical works include vocal, chamber and orchestral music.

Previn's many recordings include the three ballets of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker), and the complete symphonies of Ralph Vaughan Williams, all with the LSO. With the Los Angeles Philharmonic, he made other recordings of music by Sergei Prokofiev (most notably, the Symphonies 1 and 5, the score to Alexander Nevsky and the Symphony - Concerto for Cello & Orchestra with Heinrich Schiff as soloist), symphonies and other pieces by Antonín Dvořák, and works by contemporary composers including William Kraft, John Harbison, and Harold Shapero. His recordings of works by Rachmaninoff, Gershwin, William Walton, and Shostakovich have been particularly prized.

He has made jazz recordings in two periods of his career: in the 1950s and early 1960s and then again since the 1980s. With bassist David Finck he has recorded a collection of George Gershwin standards ("We Got Rhythm: Gershwin Songbook") and Duke Ellington classics ("We Got It Good & That Ain't Bad: an Ellington Songbook"), both on the Deutsche Grammophon label.

Previn became known to a broad public through his television work. In the United Kingdom he worked on TV with the London Symphony Orchestra. In the United States the TV show "Previn and the Pittsburgh" (1977) featured him in collaboration with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.

Previn is particularly remembered in Britain for his performance as "Mr. Andrew Preview" (or "Privet") on the Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show in 1971, which involved his conducting a performance of Edvard Grieg's Piano Concerto with Eric Morecambe as the comically inept soloist. At one point during the sketch "Mr Preview" accuses Eric Morecambe of playing all the wrong notes; Eric retorts that he has been playing "all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order". Because of other commitments the only time available for Previn to learn his part in the show was during a transatlantic flight but the talent he showed for comedy won high praise from his co-performers. At a concert with the Grieg Concerto in Britain afterwards, Previn had to pause the playing to allow the audience time to stop giggling as they remembered the sketch. Previn himself notes that people in Britain still recall the sketch years later: "Taxi drivers still call me Mr Preview".

Previn has been married five times. His first three marriages, to Betty Bennett (with whom he had two children), to Dory Langan and then to Mia Farrow, kept him in the public eye. He is the father of Lovely Previn, who was violinist for the Irish band In Tua Nua. Previn and Farrow had three children together, twins Matthew and Sascha, born February 26, 1970, and Fletcher, born March 14, 1974. In 1973 and 1976, respectively, Previn and Farrow adopted Vietnamese infants Lark Song and Summer "Daisy" Song (born October 6, 1974). Lark died on Christmas Day of 2008. He is also the adoptive father of Soon - Yi Previn, who was adopted from Korea at age 8 (born October 8, 1970). After his fourth marriage (to Heather Sneddon in 1982, with whom he had one child) ended in 2002, Previn wed the German violinist Anne - Sophie Mutter, and later wrote a violin concerto for her. They divorced in 2006, but remain on amicable terms and have continued to work together in concerts. Previn wrote a memoir of his early years in Hollywood, No Minor Chords, which was published in 1991.

Previn has received a total of thirteen Academy Award nominations, winning in 1958, 1959, 1963 and 1964. He is one of few composers to accomplish the feat of winning back - to - back Oscars, and one of only two to do so on two occasions (the other being Alfred Newman). In 1970 he was nominated for a Tony Award as part of Coco's nomination for Best Musical. In 1977 he became an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music. The 1977 television show Previn and the Pittsburgh was nominated for three Emmy awards. Previn was appointed an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1996. (Not being a citizen of a Commonwealth Realm, he may use only the post - nominal letters KBE and not the title "Sir André".) Previn received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1998 in recognition of his contributions to classical music and opera in the United States. In 2005 he was awarded the international Glenn Gould Prize and in 2008 won Gramophone magazine's Lifetime Achievement Award for his work in classical, film and jazz music. In 2010, the Recording Academy honored Previn with a Lifetime Achievement Grammy.