Fiedler, Arthur (1894–1979)

US conductor. Trained as a violinist, he was concerned to promote the appreciation of music among the public and founded his own chamber orchestra, the Boston Sinfonietta, in 1924. He founded the Boston Pops Orchestra in 1930 and, with them, was an extremely popular conductor of light classical music for almost a half century.

Fiedler was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and studied the violin in Boston and Berlin, Germany, before joining the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1916, playing first the violin and then the viola. The founding of the Boston Sinfonietta allowed him to realize his ambition to conduct. In 1929 he launched the Esplanade summer series, free concerts by the Boston Symphony along the Charles River, and he actively promoted music through various mediums.

He was also made an honorary fire chief because of his practice of chasing every major fire, day or night, and became a familiar figure to Bostonians at the scene of the fires.