The American-born conductor, pianist, vocal coach and contemporary New Zealand music supporter Dobbs Franks (1933-2023) has died. He was 90. In this 2000 interview Christine Argyle asks him about his life's work.
Dobbs Franks (1933-2023). Photo: screen grab / DobbsFranks.com
Born in Arkansas in 1933, Dobbs Franks started piano lessons in Memphis at the age of 3. He later made the big move to New York, graduating from Julliard with a Masters in Piano. There he also became interested in conducting, working as assistant conductor for the Robert Shaw Chorale.
Within two years of graduating he was conducting performances of Porgy and Bess, having met Ira Gershwin. After another two years, in 1960, Leonard Bernstein himself recommended Franks as conductor for the first Australian production of West Side Story.
Dobbs Franks first came to New Zealand in 1965 to conduct Porgy and Bess, starring Inia Te Wiata as Porgy – one of the great performers of this role.
Franks conducted two other operas for the NZ Opera Company in 1965: Don Giovanni and Il Trovatore, and conducted a recording of Ravel’s L’Heure Espagnol as well that year.
In 1966 he committed what, at the time, must have seems like professional suicide by moving to New Zealand. Taking up the roles of Artistic and Musical Director of the New Zealand Opera Company, Franks met his wife, English violinist Ruth Pearl, who was the company’s Concertmaster as well as a violinist in the Lyndsay String Orchestra. The couple made time for some chamber music performances together too.
Dobbs Franks was a strong advocate for NZ music and contemporary music in general, for instance by premiering Jenny McLeod’s Earth and Sky, despite a common belief among audiences that what happens overseas must be better than anything happening here.
Leaving New Zealand in 1969 Franks expressed concern for the future of music here, and the fact that being a musician was not regarded as a profession. Despite this, he returned in the mid-1970s, this time to live in Christchurch where he conducted The Marriage of Figaro in the 1975 Christchurch Arts Festival, and became Principal conductor of Canterbury Orchestra, Christchurch Civic Orchestra & Christchurch Harmonic Society.
Christopher Blake was artistic manager of the Christchurch Civic Orchestra, and composed a work Leaving the Plains of C for Franks, the premiere of which he conducted before he again left NZ in 1979.
In between Franks two stints in NZ he was conductor of the Australian Opera Company and Musical Director of the Australian Ballet, touring with Nureyev & Fonteyn in the States during that time.
Dobbs Franks lived in Australia for his remaining years, achieving a glittering career across ballet, opera and musical theatre. he love working with live composers and young people, conducting many youth orchestras and lecturing in music. He survived a serious car accident in 2006, wrote a book titled So You Want to be A Musician, branched out into public speaking and life coaching, and loved playing competitive bridge and big game fishing.
Music remained his number one passion, and saw him perform in 49 of the 50 states of the USA, Canada, Mexico, Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Korea, Philippines, China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Japan, Greece, Israel, Switzerland, Italy, Holland, England, Scotland, Ireland and Tasmania.
