Anthony Bowles (1931 or 1932 - March 15, 1993)

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Anthony Bowles (1931 or 1932 - March 15, 1993, London, England) was a Composer, Conductor, Arranger, Musical Director (theater, film and television). He studied at Royal Academy of Music in London.

Anthony Bowles was a leading musical director and conductor in London's West End for many years. His credits include several early Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice musicals, among them Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. He also worked in New York at theaters such as SoHo Rep, where he conducted his original score to the musical Mandrake in 1984. His other musical theatre works include Love in the Country (1970) and Sir Thomas More (1964).

Bowles studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London while supporting himself as a pit pianist. He later worked as assistant to the composer Benjamin Britten and as pianist for several ballet companies, including Sadler's Wells and the Stuttgart Ballet. He composed numerous television and movie scores, among them The Odessa File and Isadora, which he also conducted.

He taught at the Guildhall and other drama schools in England, and in 1980 founded the Actor's Choir, an organization of actors and singers who work in television, film and the theater. In 1993 The Love Cooperative, the choir's production company, mounted a London revival of his 1970 musical Love in the Country.

Anthony Bowles died of AIDS in London at the age of 61 on March 15, 1993.

Source: http://www.artistswithaids.org/artforms/music/catalogue/bowles.html

Further Readings:

Beyond Shame: Reclaiming the Abandoned History of Radical Gay Sexuality by Patrick Moore
Paperback: 264 pages
Publisher: Beacon Press (January 14, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 080707957X
ISBN-13: 978-0807079577
Amazon: Beyond Shame: Reclaiming the Abandoned History of Radical Gay Sexuality

The radical sexuality of gay American men in the 1970s is often seen as a shameful period of excess that led to the AIDS crisis. Beyond Shame claims that when the gay community divorced itself from this allegedly tainted legacy, the tragic result was an intergenerational disconnect because the original participants were unable to pass on a sense of pride and identity to younger generations. Indeed, one reason for the current rise in HIV, Moore argues, is precisely due to this destructive occurrence, which increased the willingness of younger gay men to engage in unsafe sex.

Lifting the'veil of AIDS,' Moore recasts the gay male sexual culture of the 1970s as both groundbreaking and creative-provocatively comparing extreme sex to art. He presents a powerful yet nuanced snapshot of a maligned, forgotten era. Moore rescues gay America's past, present, and future from a disturbing spiral of destruction and AIDS-related shame, illustrating why it's critical for the gay community to reclaim the decade.

More LGBT History at my website: www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Gay Classics