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| | MTV.com - Erich Kunzel |
 | | Educated at Dartmouth, Harvard, and Brown Universities, he studied under French conductor Pierre Montreux, later serving as his personal assistant; in 1965, Kunzel was invited by music director Max Rudolph to join the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, soon taking over their Eight O'Clock Pops series. |
 | | His affinity for the pops repertoire was immediate, and in 1970 Arthur Fiedler invited him to conduct the Boston Pops; in the years to follow, he returned to Boston annually to assume guest conductor duties, and by the time the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra was officially established in 1977, Kunzel was the obvious choice for conductor. |
 | | Many of Kunzel's recordings with the Cincinnati Pops -- among them The Sound of Music, Victory at Sea and Chiller -- topped Billboard's chart of best-selling classical crossover records; in total, over three dozen of his works made chart appearances, a number unpredecedented for pops recordings. |
| www.mtv.com /bands/az/kunzel_erich/bio.jhtml (252 words) |
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