Forbes to Take Last Bow

Elliot Forbes '40, Fanny Peabody Professor of Music, will make his last appearance as conductor of the Harvard Glee Club and the Radcliffe Choral Society tonight at Sanders Theatre. in a joint concert with the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra.

"You'll see me popping up in Yard concerts every once in a while though," Forbes said yesterday. "I'm like that singer who's always doing his last concert."

After receiving his A. M. degree from Harvard in 1947, Forbes taught music at Princeton for 11 years. In 1958, he succeeded G. Wallace Woodsworth, who died last year, as conductor of the Harvard Glee Club and the Radcliffe Choral Society.

"I feel very humble about following Woody," he said. "I felt I had to keep up the tradition."

Under Forbes, the two choral groups continued to sing with the Boston Symphony and to perform large works on campus-two trends begun by Woodsworth.

In 1961, Forbes took the Glee Club on a world tour. In 1964, the Choral Society joined the Glee Club on a tour of North America. The two groups travelled up the West Coast to Juneau, Alaska; and back across the Canadian plains to Cambridge.

Pleased with the success of the first two trips, Forbes took the two choral groups on another world tour in 1967. A combined performance with the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra at the Edinburgh Music Festival highlighted the tour.

Forbes said his decision to retire as conductor was prompted by the willingness of F. John Adams, conductor of the Harvard-Radcliffe Chorus, to take over the post.

"I'm going to miss the Glee Club and the Choral Society," Forbes said. "But John Adams is the ideal person to succeed me."