Albert Coleman

News Obituary Article

SMYRNA: Albert Coleman, 97, conducted Atlanta Pops

By HOLLY CRENSHAW

When Atlanta Pops Orchestra conductor Albert Coleman stepped onstage, his signature white suit and flowing white hair added an extra note of drama to his already dramatic persona.

From 1945 until his 2002 retirement, Mr. Coleman kept Atlanta audiences mesmerized with his bouncing baton and French-accented English, one of several languages he spoke.

He endeared himself to the city with hundreds of free concerts at the Fox Theatre, Chastain Park, Stone Mountain and other venues, sharing the stage with big-name artists such as Bob Hope, Chet Atkins and Henry Mancini.

And he endeared himself to musicians, slipping them extra money out of his own pocket and giving young artists their first break.

"He's probably done more to promote classical music in the city of Atlanta than anybody else, as far as longevity goes," said the Pops' current conductor and musical director, John Head of Atlanta. "I don't know how many hundreds of free concerts he gave, and he exposed an incredible number of people to good orchestral music that they otherwise would have been unable to hear."

The memorial service for the retired conductor will be held at 2 p.m. Dec. 16 at the Academy of Medicine. Mr. Coleman, 97, of Smyrna died Nov. 27 at the Northeast Atlanta Health and Rehabilitation Center.

The body was donated to Emory University School of Medicine.

Like many others who grew up in Atlanta, Mr. Head was a youngster when he first saw Mr. Coleman conducting a pops concert at the Fox.

"When I got my first job with him and told my mother, she said I'd made it, I'd gone straight to the top, because he was that popular at that time," Mr. Head said.

Before he moved to Atlanta and founded the enormously popular 55-piece orchestra, Mr. Coleman's life was already the stuff of novels --- with so many chapters that his wife would sometimes bring a tape recorder on car trips and prompt Mr. Coleman to talk.

"I'd say, 'Albert, tell me about the time you were in Singapore or the time you were in South Africa,' " said his wife, Betty Coleman.

Born in Paris to a French musician father and Italian tightrope-walking mother, he started playing the violin when he was five and toured circuses with his parents, eventually ending up Russia.

In 1917, in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution, he escaped with his parents by riding on the top of a train across Siberia to China.

He lived in Saigon, Shanghai and Singapore, performed in Asia and Australia, and filled scrapbooks with black-and-white photos he took with his Brownie camera as he toured exotic foreign lands.

In 1944, he became music director of WSB Radio, and Atlanta became his first permanent home.

Since few people could pronounce his surname, Crosnier, he flipped through a phone book and picked a new one.

He was in charge of entertainment at the now-defunct Dinkler Hotel, founded his own booking agency and appeared as a guest conductor with more than 60 symphonies around the country.

Before every concert, Mr. Coleman labored over his set list, timing each piece and substituting selections until he was positive the show would be a crowd-pleaser, whether he was performing for sophisticated listeners or picnicking families with children.

Mr. Coleman was an obsessive moviegoer, but other than that, his wife said, "he had no hobbies, no interest in going to a ballgame. He was just entirely wrapped up in music and wanting to please people with his music."

In a 1988 Atlanta Journal-Constitution article, Mr. Coleman said, "I've lived like a millionaire," he said, "without being a millionaire."

Survivors other than his wife include two daughters, Jan Chantry of Knoxville, Tenn., and Elaine Maloney of Marietta; a son, Lorne Coleman of Atlanta; a step-daughter, Lee Ann Jones of Atlanta; three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

© 2007 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution