Boyd Neel

Louis Boyd Neel O.C. (19 July 1905 – 30 September 1981) was an English, and later Canadian conductor and academic. He is perhaps best known for revitalizing the genre of the chamber orchestra.

Neel was born in Blackheath, London, and wanted to be a pianist as a child. His mother, Ruby Le Couteur, was a professional accompanist, and his father was an engineer. Destined for the Royal Navy, Neel went to Osborne naval college and then to Dartmouth. Soon after he was commissioned, the armed forces underwent a drastic reduction (the so-called ‘Geddes Axe’), and Neel left the navy to study medicine at Caius College, Cambridge. He qualified in 1930, and became House Surgeon and Physician at Saint George's Hospital, London, and Resident Doctor at King Edward VII’s Hospital, London.

In 1930, while practising medicine, Neel studied music theory and orchestration at the Guildhall School of Music.

For Neel, at this stage, music was still a hobby. He conducted amateur groups and was persuaded to form an orchestra of young professionals, whom he recruited in 1932 from the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music. The Boyd Neel London String Orchestra (later the Boyd Neel Orchestra) made its debut at the Aeolian Hall, London, on 22 June 1933. After the concert, Neel returned to his surgery and delivered a baby. By December 1933, the orchestra was invited to broadcast by the BBC. When Decca offered Neel and the orchestra a contract, he left medicine to devote himself full-time to music.

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