CONDUCTOR EHRLING DIES

Acclaimed Swedish conductor SIXTEN EHRLING has died aged 86 in New York.

After graduating from Stockholm's ROYAL ACADEMY OF MUSIC, Ehrling joined Germany's DRESDEN STATE OPERA in 1939 where he worked under the teaching of KARL BOHN.

He returned to conduct the Swedish Royal Opera in the fifties, but left amidst controversy in 1960. Ehrling decided to move to America where he became music director of the DETROIT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA before teaching conducting at New York's illustrious Juilliard School Of Music.

He reconciled his differences with his homeland before his death, and conducted his last opera in Stockholm last year (04).

STEFAN JOHANSSON, head dramaturge at the ROYAL SWEDISH OPERA, says, "He was a conductor who emerged at a very good time here. He was a conductor who had his breakthrough by introducing the modern repertoire (to Sweden, which) had been delayed here by the war."