Jeffrey Tate Link

ASBAH President - Jeffrey Tate CBE

World renowned conductor Dr Jeffrey Tate, CBE, has been President of ASBAH since 1989. During the past 16 years he has seen first hand how ASBAH helps thousands of families and individuals each year.
Jeffrey, who has spina bifida, spent much of his childhood in hospital. Prolonged stays and treatments meant he was finally able to walk away from his wheelchair, although he conducts on stage from a chair.
But these experiences were formative for Jeffrey, influencing both his love of music and medicine.
Here he talks about his illustrious career.

"I still have this element of pinching myself that it has all happened," says Jeffrey, looking back on his many achievements. And I never lose the sense of being slightly in the wrong place.
"If people had told me that I would have the stamina to conduct Ring Cycles, I would have been amazed." He pauses, then adds, "I still am, for that matter."
The renowned conductor says life has been wonderful, but adds that he is not obsessional about his music.
Jeffrey explained:" I do get enormous fulfilment from conducting, but I cannot admit to getting total fulfilment from it. Music is only one element of my life. "
He decided as a youth to work in medicine to try to give back something for all the treatment he received as a child enabling him to walk.
For a while medicine won out as Jeffrey's career choice, but throughout his studies at Cambridge and later at London's St Thomas's Hospital, music continued to lure him.
He finally decided to take a year out and studied coaching at the London Opera Centre "to get it out of my system". Jeffrey's career has been centred around music ever since.
At the end of the 12 months Jeffrey was offered a job as principal assistant at Covent Garden, where he stayed until 1977. He revelled in the work which brought him into contact with some of the world's leading conductors and orchestras.
In 1978, whilst working as an assistant director of the Cologne Opera, Jeffrey heard the Gothenberg Opera in Sweden was looking for someone to conduct Carmen. Jeffrey applied and got the job.
"As the music moved under my hands, I suddenly felt that I was doing something I had been waiting to do all my life," he said.
 
A year later he made his North America debut replacing James Levine on just three hours notice for Lulu at the Metropolitan Opera, New York. He earned a standing ovation from both the audience and the musicians.
"Suddenly I found myself a professional conductor," Jeffrey remembered.
His musical career has taken him largely overseas, but the lifestyle has its ups and downs.
"The longest time I've ever spent anywhere in the last five years was four-and-a-half months in Australia doing The Ring. I do get a little tired of travelling, but I do enjoy the stimulation of different orchestras and cultures."
But he revealed: "Even now people still call me the eternal amateur. Professionals are supposed to be able to conduct everything, but I can't unless I feel some connection inside.
"I don't have enough time to conduct repertoire that I'm not interested in. I'm old enough to say, "I don't need that now."