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British composer and conductor Harry Rabinowitz, who for two decades spent his winters in Portland, has died in France, family members tell WW. He was 100.
Rabinowitz is perhaps best known as the first conductor of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats. He conducted the film scores for Chariots of Fire, The Remains of the Day, and The English Patient.
Rabinowitz was born in South Africa, but spent most of his life in England. Starting in the 1990s, he began living November through March of each year in Portland with his wife, Mitzi Scott.
In 2008, Rabinowitz told the Portland Tribune he wanted to be remembered as someone who quickly grabbed the attention and affection of of orchestras he conducted.
"In almost all the sessions I've conducted the musicians have left smiling," he said. "They didn't go out drooping or bored. I take pleasure in that. In fact, I think a timely phrase would be, 'He never wasted his colleagues' time.'"
Willamette Week