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Laszlo Gati

Symphony conductor, author, teacher. Born on Sept. 25, 1925, in Timisoara, Romania; died on July 20, 2014, in Vancouver, of natural causes, aged 88.

Our father, Laszlo Gati, dreamed of becoming a symphony conductor from a young age. He began studying violin at age 2, later adding viola. When he was 8, he went to see the movie King Kong, and walked into the theatre just as the music began. He felt the magical power of it and decided then and there that he wanted to be a conductor.

For several years, early in his career, he was a violinist and conductor of the Hungarian State Philharmonic. When the Hungarian Revolution broke out in 1956, he was head of the symphonic and chamber music department of the Hungarian Radio station in Budapest. He had already survived a war, several tumultuous governments and border changes, so when the revolution began he decided it was time to leave. In 1957, he and his wife Agnes immigrated to Montreal with their baby daughter, Suzanne.

There, daughter Kathleen was born and for the next 10 years, Laszlo played violin and viola with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and also acted as assistant conductor to Zubin Mehta. Concurrently, he was a highly acclaimed guest conductor at dozens of orchestras across Europe and Mexico. He loved the stage and people were attracted by his charismatic joie de vivre. Audiences were mesmerized by his stories and explanations of the music they were about to hear.

In 1967, Laszlo moved his family across Canada to become conductor and musical director of the Victoria Symphony Orchestra. Over the following 12 years, he changed the face of classical music in the city, bringing in high-calibre soloists and entertainers (such as Yehudi Menuhin, Van Cliburn, Jack Benny and Mstislav Rostropovich) as well as pursuing his passion to make concerts available to every person, not only to the elite. He created popular performance programs, such as Concerts in the Park and the Dollar Concert series. From 1979 to 1985, he was conductor of Ontario's Windsor Symphony Orchestra.

Laszlo was a kind, compassionate man and treated everyone as an equal. He had a great curiosity about life, world politics and nature, along with a great love for travel and experiencing different cultures and languages – he spoke a half-dozen. While living in Montreal, he converted a milk-delivery van into a camper and enthusiastically drove our family all over the United States and Mexico so we could see and experience more of the world.

He also enjoyed entertaining, and many internationally renowned musicians dined at our kitchen table over the years. They would discuss music and politics, share stories and jokes, and roar with laughter late into the night.

After Agnes died in 1991, he moved to Vancouver. He loved the West Coast and the city offered opportunities for him to both teach music and conduct into his 80s. At 82, he wrote an autobiography, Les Préludes.

Our father dedicated his life to enhancing the classical music scene internationally, and was recognized with many awards, including a senior fellowship from the Canada Council for the Arts and the 1977 Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal. Laszlo was profoundly loved and appreciated by the community, his family and friends. He cherished his family and was very proud of his daughters – just as we are so very proud of him.

Kathleen and Suzanne Gati are Laszlo's daughters.

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