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 Karlheinz Stockhausen's "Gruppen" in 1967, and conducted the Proms premieres of "Die Jakobsleiter" in 1968, "Boris Godunov" in 1971 and "The Fiery Angel" in 1991, as well as public premieres of George Lloyd's Symphony No. 6 and works by Roger Smalley, Elizabeth Maconchy and Jonathan Elias. Downes was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1986 New Year Honours, and was knighted in the 1991 Queen's Birthday Honours. Although not terminally ill, Downes had been coping with increasing deafness and near total blindness for many years. He had become almost totally dependent on his wife