BBC Television Orchestra

Hyam Greenbaum and the BBC Television Orchestra in a test broadcast to Radiolympia, August 1936

The BBC Television Orchestra (1936–1939) was a broadcast orchestra founded in 1936 by violinist and composer Hyam Greenbaum and led by Boris Pecker. Hyam Greenbaum's wife Sidonie Goossens was the first solo harpist with the Orchestra in that year.^[1] It was disbanded in September 1939 when the outbreak of the Second World War caused the BBC Television service to be suspended so as not to create a VHF beacon for German bombers.

The Orchestra played on the first ever programme broadcast when regular British television broadcasts commenced on 26 August 1936 to an estimated 123,000 viewers. The Orchestra also played on the opening day of BBC Television high-definition broadcast on Monday, 2 November 1936.^[2][3]

See also

• List of radio orchestras

References

1. Telegraph.co.uk 12:05AM GMT 16 December 2004
2. The History of the BBC
3. "BBC liner notes, 1936". Archived from the original on 21 April 2008.

External links

• The B.B.C. Television Orchestra at the Internet Movie Database
• Birth of Television
• The History of the BBC: The First TV Era
• The History of the BBC: Here's Television Part II
• Electromusicians, BAIRD The Birth of Television