Sidney Torch(1908-1990)
- Composer
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Leading composer-conductor of familiar orchestral music and a famed
British organist. Born of Russian parents at 27 Tottenham Court in
London, his father, Morris Torchinsky, was a professional trombonist
and encouraged his son to excel. Sidney studied piano at the Blackheath
Conservatoire, then became accompanist to violinist Albert Sandler and
an organist at cinemas including the Regal, Marble Arch, Edmonton, the
Regal Kingston, and finally the new Gaumont State in 1937, making many
records, broadcasts and personal appearances. He joined the Royal Air
Force as an air gunner in 1940 and was stationed near Blackpool where
he continued to record at the Opera House. Subsequently he was
commissioned as an RAF Squadron Leader and conducted the RAF Concert
Orchestra where his talents for composing and orchestral arranging were
honed. At about the time he composed the music for the BBC's radio
series "Much Binding in the Marsh", he was discovered by
production-music publishers as a source for quality mood-music
compositions. From 1946 on, he contributed and conducted (with the
Queen's Hall Light Orchestra ) many instrumental works for the Chappell's catalog under both
his own name and the 'Denis Rycoth' pseudonym (an anagram). From 1947
to 1949, he also conducted the New Century Orchestra until a British
Musicians' Union ban put an end to that collaboration. In 1953, the
BBC's popular "Friday Night is Music Night" was launched, with Sidney
Torch conducting the BB Concert Orchestra for nearly twenty years until
his 1972 retirement. Before then he had conducted numerous celebrity
concerts at such venues as the Royal Festival Hall in London and
others. His personality has been described by some of his
instrumentalists and choral singers as tyrannical, and in a rare 1983
interview he admitted to being "cruel" in his professional dealings but
added that in his opinion the final results may have been beneficial
and that those he targeted may have been the better for it. His
light-orchestral works are still very-often heard today, and American
audiences remember his music from movie trailers, especially from
drive-in theatres.