George Hurst was born in Edinburgh, on 20th May 1926, to a Romanian father and Russian mother. He showed early musical talent as a piano student of Julius Isserlis, and in his early teens was evacuated to Canada at the start of World War II. There, he studied eventually at the Royal Conservatory of Music, in Toronto. Having won the annual award given by the Canadian Association of Publishers, Authors and Composers, he was subsequently appointed as Professor of Composition at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore at the age of 21, studying conducting during this period with Pierre Monteux, Leon Barzin and Ettore Mazzoleni. In 1950, he was appointed Principal Conductor of the York Symphony Orchestra, Pennsylvania.
At the encouragement of Dame Myra Hess, he returned to Great Britain, making his debut with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at London’s Royal Festival Hall in 1953. He was eventually appointed as Assistant (then Associate) conductor to the LPO and Sir Adrian Boult, touring with them extensively both in Britain and abroad. Following a highly successful tour of South Africa with the Cape Town Orchestra, Hurst was appointed Principal Conductor of the BBC Northern Orchestra in 1958 remaining in that post until 1968. He is widely credited with that orchestra’s development and the subsequent reputation it now enjoys as the BBC Philharmonic. During this period, Hurst conducted the orchestra in numerous radio broadcasts, in addition to guest conducting extensively with all the major UK orchestras and also in France, Germany, Denmark, Canada, Switzerland, and Israel. He made a series of recordings with the Royal Danish and Hamburg Pro Musica orchestras during this time, details of which may be found in the ‘Discography’ page on this site. He also appeared frequently at the BBC Proms, with the London Symphony Orchestra and his own BBC Northern Orchestra, among others.
From 1968, Hurst was involved in the formation and establishment of the Bournemouth Sinfonietta and continued as Artistic Advisor to both this orchestra and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra until 1974, remaining a frequent and respected guest conductor thereafter. He was Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra from 1986 to 1989, and the RTE in Dublin engaged him in 1990 to rebuild its Symphony Orchestra and serve as the first Principal Conductor of the newly formed National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland. Hurst made a series of recordings for the Naxos label during the 1990s, with a number of orchestras with which he had been closely associated, before retiring from professional conducting in 2000.
As a teacher of conducting, Hurst was a figure of international renown, and ranks alongside Russia’s Ilya Musin as one of the most influential pedagogues in the history of the craft. Almost every major conductor to have emerged from Britain since 1960 has passed through his hands at some point and Hurst additionally set up trainee conductor schemes during his time in Manchester and Bournemouth. He founded and directed the conducting course at the Canford Summer School of Music from 1959 until his death in 2012, and was also Visiting Professor of Conducting at London’s Royal Academy of Music from 1983 in addition to giving masterclasses elsewhere in the UK.