Jeffrey Tate was an English classical conductor who struggled with the
neurological disease spina bifida from childhood but overcame it to become
celebrated internationally for his work with most of the major orchestras and
chorales in Europe and in the United States. Born in the Wiltshire town of
Salisbury, he studied music as a child but turned to medicine at university and
began his life as a doctor before returning to his first love later. In the
1970s, he worked with Georg Solti at the Royal Opera House where in 1986 he
became the venue's first principal conductor, a positio...