Edward Downes Edward Downes Sir Edward Thomas ("Ted") Downes, CBE (17 June 1924 – 10 July 2009) was an English conductor, specialising in opera. He was associated with the Royal Opera House from 1952, and with Opera Australia from 1970. He was also well known for his long working relationship with the BBC Philharmonic and for working with the Netherlands Radio Orchestra. Within the field of opera, he was particularly known as a conductor of Verdi. He and his wife, Lady (Joan) Downes, committed assisted suicide at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland on 10 July 2009, an event that received significant media
Edward Downes (American musicologist) for Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., preparing briefing books for the Office of Strategic Services. Downes taught at Wellesley College, the Longy School of Music, the University of Minnesota. Much of the end of his career was as a professor at Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where he taught and advised doctoral students. Downes was at one time music critic of "The Boston Evening Transcript", "The New York Post". Downes also wrote program notes for the New York Philharmonic for eighteen years. In 1955, after his father died, Downes went to work for