Voorhees, Donald

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Voorhees, Donald

Voorhees, Donald, American conductor; b. Guth-ville, Pa., July 26,1903; d. Cape May Court House, N.J., Jan. 10, 1989. He joined the Lyric Theatre orch. in Allentown, Pa., as a pianist at age 12, becoming its conductor when he was 15; at 17, he made his first appearance as a conductor on Broadway with the musical revue Broadway Brevitiesof 1920. Voorhees subsequently conducted various Broadway shows. He also was active as a conductor on radio from 1925, and in 1940 he became music director of the highly successful network radio show the Bell Telephone Hour,for which he composed its signature theme, the Bell Waltz. After the show moved to television in 1959, he remained as its music director until its last telecast in 1968.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire