The author, Steve Bailey, is outreach coordinator at the Anson County Historical Society.  (Photo courtesy of George Byrd – Conductor)  

George Byrd, who made history by becoming the first African-American to conduct the West Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in 1959, was born in Lilesville on March 22, 1926.

His mother, Flora Byrd, was unmarried at the time but by 1928 had married to William Ingram. George was raised by his grandparents, Tom and Zilphia Byrd. I haven’t been able to find out if he was ever married, but he died in Munich, Germany, on March 12, 2010, when he was 83 years old and he was buried in Munich.

George Byrd became one of the leading orchestral conductors in Germany. He studied at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City, the Conservatoire National in Paris, and under the master classical conductor Herman Von Karejan in Lucerne, Switzerland. In a career that spanned more than four decades he would perform with more than 80 orchestras all over Europe and the United States. He principally lived and worked in Germany and was known for his mixed used of classical artists from Brahms to Beethoven to 20th century composers such as George Gershwin. These performances would often use classical pieces set to a jazz or contemporary rhythm.

Having studied in Europe since 1949, he eventually became the principal conductor of the Bavarian State Orchestra in Munich. Jet magazine on Sept. 10, 1959, reported: “A 33-year-old conductor born in Anson County, N.C., and lived briefly in  Brooklyn New York, George Byrd was warmly applauded by a Berlin audience after he became the first American Negro to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Juilliard School of Music educated Byrd who had been studying and ‘guest conducting’ in Europe since 1949, remarked that his greatest ambition is to have a ‘conducting job in the United States because I have a lot of bills to pay.’”