Richard Dennis Oliver Austin FRCM (26 December 1903, in Birkenhead – 1 April 1989, in Reading) was the chief conductor of the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra from 1934 until 1940 and later a Professor of the Royal College of Music.
[3] The following year, while conducting a star-studded production of The Golden Toy at the London Coliseum with Peggy Ashcroft, Wilfred Lawson, Nellie Wallace, and Lupino Lane, Austin saw an advertisement for the post of musical director to the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra.
[1] Concurrently, Austin served as Music Director to the New Era Concert Society (1947–1957) and was a guest conductor at Sadler's Wells Theatre, with other London and provincial orchestras in the United Kingdom, and overseas in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Cuba, Mexico, South Africa, the United States, and also in South America.
[1] Austin recorded a selection of works by Balfour Gardiner in May 1955 for Argo, with Alexander Young, the Goldsmiths’ Choral Union and the London Symphony Orchestra (Overture to a Comedy, Shepherd Fennel’s Dance, April, Philomela).
A recording of The Beggar's Opera featured Dennis Noble, Carmen Prietto, Martha Lipton, Roderick Jones, Marjorie Westbury, John Cameron and William McAlpine.