Early Life and Education
Downes was born in Birmingham, England on 17 June 1924, son of a bank teller. He left school at the age of 14, sent out by his father to earn his living in a local gas store for 16s 10d (84p) a week.
Having taken up the piano and violin aged five he won a scholarship at the age of 16 to the University of Birmingham where he studied English literature and music, and began playing the cor anglais. Downes' pursuit of conducting was aided by a two-year Carnegie scholarship from the University of Aberdeen, which allowed him to study with Hermann Scherchen after postgraduate studies at the Royal College of Music.
In 1955 he married Joan Weston, a dancer with the Royal Ballet. She later became a choreographer and television producer. They had two children: a son, Caractacus (born December 1967), a musician and recording engineer, and a daughter, Boudicca (born 1970), a video producer.
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