Robert Irving

Robert Augustine Irving, DFC*, was a British conductor whose reputation was mainly as a ballet conductor. Born in Winchester, England, the son of mountaineer and author R. L. G. Irving, he was educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford, graduating with a degree in music. He studied with Malcolm Sargent and Constant Lambert at the Royal College of Music from 1934 to 1936. Irving conducted the Oxford University Opera Club's 1934 production of Castor et Pollux. During World War II, he served with the Royal Air Force, and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and bar for two tours as a navigator in anti-shipping strike squadrons. He was the first Captain-Navigator in the Royal Air Force, opening the way for navigators to captain aircraft. An attempt by Dickie Richardson to recruit him to the post-war RAF was turned down in favour of conducting. He left with the rank of Squadron Leader. He then became assistant conductor with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and was conductor and musical director of Sadler's Wells Ballet from 1949 to 1958, working closely with Sir Frederick Ashton on several ballets.

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