{{Short description|New Zealand musician and conductor}} {{Use dmy dates|date=June 2019}} {{Use New Zealand English|date=June 2019}} '''Oswald Astley Cheesman''' {{post-nominals|country=NZL|MBE}} (13 September 1913 – 29 September 1985) was a New Zealand musician, music teacher, conductor and composer.
Cheesman was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, on 13 September 1913.<ref name="DNZB Cheesman">{{DNZB|Downes|Peter|5c20|Oswald Astley Cheesman|1 December 2011}}</ref> After World War II, he was involved in forming first New Zealand Broadcasting Service's Auckland Radio Orchestra and then in 1946 and 1947 the National Orchestra, now the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.<ref name="DNZB Cheesman"/>
In 1970, he received the Benny Award from the Variety Artists Club of New Zealand Inc, the highest honour available to a New Zealand variety entertainer.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.vacnz.com/bennyaward/|title=Variety Artists Club of NZ Benny Award Recipients|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20131016033941/http://www.vacnz.com/bennyaward/|archivedate=2013-10-16}}</ref> In the 1972 Queen's Birthday Honours, he was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire, for services to music.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=45680 |date=3 June 1972 |page=6294 |supp=3}}</ref>
Cheesman married Elaine Court in Auckland in March 1939.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Evening Wedding |journal=New Zealand Herald |date=29 March 1939 |page=5 |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZH19390329.2.7.1}}</ref> They had three sons. Cheesman died in Auckland in September 1985, aged 72.<ref name="DNZB Cheesman"/>
==References== {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Cheesman, Oswald Astley}} Category:1913 births Category:1985 deaths Category:New Zealand male conductors (music) Category:Musicians from Christchurch Category:New Zealand Symphony Orchestra people Category:20th-century New Zealand conductors (music) Category:New Zealand Members of the Order of the British Empire Category:20th-century New Zealand male musicians
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