O’Connell, Charles

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O’Connell, Charles

O’Connell, Charles, American conductor and recording executive; b. Chicopee, Mass., April 22, 1900; d. N.Y., Sept. 1, 1962. He studied at the Catholic School and Coll. of the Holy Cross (B.A., 1922), and also had instruction in organ from Widor in Paris. From 1930 to 1944 he was head of the artist and repertoire dept. of the RCA Victor Red Seal label, then music director of Columbia Masterworks (1944–7). He publ. The Victor Book of the Symphony (1934; new ed., 1948), The Victor Book of the Opera (1937), The Other Side of the Record (1947), and The Victor Book of Overtures, Tone Poems and Other Orchestral Works (1950).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire