Conductor of Bach Society Steps Down

Richard K. Green '80, conductor of the Harvard Bach Society Orchestra (BSO), told the group at a private meeting last night that he was resigning his post.

The BSO will hold auditions for a conductor and new orchestra members at 7 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 19 at Sanders Theater. The auditions are open to the Harvard undergraduate community.

The orchestra has cancelled its December concert but will play the concerts slated for Spring 1980, although the performances may not follow the programs originally announced. Matthew F. Kennelly, a BSO violist, said yesterday.

Since the beginning of the year the BSO had had problems recruiting new members and keeping them with the orchestra. After the first week of rehearsal, for example, the number of BSO violinists had dropped from 14 to six.

"When I became conductor of the BSO, I wasn't really a part of the Harvard musical community and didn't have the resources to get the orchestra members that I needed," Green said yesterday after the meeting.

"I guess I was spending too much time with numbers and not enough with music. My conducting was not what it could have been," he added.

After the first BSO concert this year, Green discussed the possibility of resigning with other members of the orchestra and eventually concluded that it would be best for the orchestra if he quit.

Green had a lot of problems because he is a pianist and not an orchestral musician, Laurence L. Wu '80, a former concertmaster of the BSO, said yesterday.

Rumors that the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra (HRO) was planning to make a European tour later this year apparently led many members of the BSO to quit and switch over to the HRO, Royce W. Miller II '82, a BSO cellist, said yesterday before the meeting.

Orchestra members said last night they were told not to comment on what happened at the meeting.