Conductor, pianist and educator Dobbs Franks has died

The Julliard-trained pianist and conductor led symphony, ballet and musical theatre orchestras across Australia for four decades.

by Jason Blake

The American-born conductor, pianist, vocal coach and music educator Dobbs Franks has died. He was 90.

Dobbs Franks, Tokyo, 2010

Born in 1933 in Arkansas, Franks had his first piano lesson at the age of three. Seventeen years later he earned his Masters in Piano at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City.

The year after graduating from Juilliard he toured for Columbia Artists as the pianist in a piano trio which performed in 49 of the 50 states of the USA over the next two years.

Franks conducted the first US tour of the musical West Side Story, and its Australian premiere season opening on 29 October 1960 at Melbourne’s Princess Theatre. He then conducted its Canadian premiere in 1961 in Toronto. In total, Franks conducted over 1000 performances of the show (he also directed the show’s Australian revival in 1983).

Franks became the Artistic and Musical Director of the New Zealand Opera Company in the mid-1960s, where he met his future wife, the English violinist Ruth Pearl, then the company’s Concertmaster.

In 1969, Pearl and Dobbs, as concertmaster and conductor, were engaged to form the Elizabethan Melbourne Orchestra (now Orchestra Victoria), which played a nine-month national tour of the Australian Opera’s Gilbert and Sullivan season.

Franks became Musical Director of The Australian Ballet and among other notable achievements, conducted the company’s New York debut in 1971. After resigning from the company, he returned to New Zealand as as a prime mover in the Christchurch Arts Festival in 1975, where he conducted The Marriage of Figaro.

After stints in the US and New Zealand, Franks returned to The Australian Ballet in 1979 as Music Director. It was an often tense relationship and Franks resigned in 1983.

He conducted ABC state orchestras between 1984 to 1995, pioneering the use of orchestras in pop concerts (in John Farnham’s Age of Reason tour), and was a Guest Conductor with most of the Australian state orchestras.

In 1995, he conducted productions of Hello Dolly, South Pacific and West Side Story. In 1996, he was Music Director for productions including My Fair Lady and Crazy for You. In 1999, the Brisbane Festival hired Franks and Pearl to conduct and lead its production of Kiss Me Kate with Yvonne Kenny and Thomas Allen. After that success, Pearl retired from playing the violin. Franks went on, however, eventually becoming Music Director of the West Australian Ballet n 2004.

It was there, in 2006, that Franks was involved in a serious car crash while on the way to the opening night of WA Ballet’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, of which he was musical director. The collision forced his car off the freeway, down a steep embankment and into a tree. Critically injured, he spent five weeks in an induced coma.

Post-recovery, Franks was Head of Music with the Australian Opera Studio (2008) and a regular guest conductor. In 2012 he became Lecturer in Voice at Monash University, Melbourne, where he lectured until 2014. He also wrote a book, So You Want to be A Musician.

After retiring, Franks continued to teach privately and perform as a vocal accompanist, chamber music pianist and career/life coach. He was also a fiercely competitive bridge player.

First published at Limelight Magazine, July 10, 2023