Coates, Albert (1882–1953)

English conductor and composer, born in Russia. He was sent to school in England and entered Liverpool University; he returned to Russia to enter his father's business but was sent to the Leipzig Conservatory. He studied conducting with Artur Nikisch and conducted opera at several German theatres before he was engaged at St Petersburg, where he conducted Wagner's dramas at the Mariinsky Theatre. He fled to England during the Revolution in 1919 and settled in London for good, conducting Wagner's Tristan and the Ring at Covent Garden; he led the first public performance of Holst's The Planets (1920).

Works Opera Assurbanipal, Samuel Pepys (1929), Pickwick (Covent Garden, 1936), and Gainsborough's Duchess.

Orchestral symphonic poem The Eagle, Russian Suite for orchestra.

Other piano pieces.