The violinist also served as the orchestra’s chairman for 16 years and was a founding member of the Arditti Quartet
Lennox ‘Lennie’ Mackenzie, the London Symphony Orchestra’s sub-leader, has retired after 38 years with the orchestra.
The violinist, who also served as the orchestra’s chairman for a total of 16 years, played his final concert as an LSO member yesterday at the Barbican Hall in a programme of Janáček, Szymanowski and Sibelius conducted by Simon Rattle.
Mackenzie joined the LSO in 1980, serving as chairman of the orchestral board twice, from 1988 to 1992 and from 2004 to 2016, becoming the longest-serving chairman in the orchestra’s 114-year history. He became sub-leader in 1985.
Last year he was awarded an OBE for services to music as well as the RPS/ABO Salomon Prize for orchestral musicians, with the citation recognising his ‘innate ability, love of music, generosity of spirit’ and his ‘wisdom, strength of character, good judgement and diplomacy’.
Mackenzie was also a founding member of the Arditti Quartet in 1974 while still a student at the Royal Academy of Music, playing with the group until 1983.
Read: London Symphony Orchestra violinist Lennox Mackenzie on treating a shoulder injury
Watch below: Lennoz Mackenzie on what makes a good conductor
No comments yet