Jeffrey Tate Biography

Sir Jeffrey Philip Tate CBE (28 April 1943 – 2 June 2017) was an English conductor of classical music. After studying medicine at the University of Cambridge and beginning a medical career in London, he switched to music and worked under Georg Solti at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, before making his conducting debut in 1979 at the Metropolitan Opera, New York. He held conducting appointments with the English Chamber Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, among others, and was the first person to be appointed principal conductor of the Royal Opera House. Tate was born with spina bifida and had an associated spinal curvature. As a disabled gay musician, he regarded himself as an outsider in two ways. He was knighted for his services to music in 2017.