Alexander Kelly (30 June 1929 – 23 October 1996) was a British

pianist A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

and former head of keyboard studies at the

Royal Academy of Music The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is the oldest conservatoire in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the first Duke of ...

. Kelly studied piano with

Harold Craxton Thomas Harold Hunt Craxton (30 April 188530 March 1971) was an English pianist, teacher and composer. Born in London, and growing up in Devizes, Craxton began studying piano with Tobias Matthay and Cuthbert Whitemore in 1907, and made a name for ...

and composition with Sir

Lennox Berkeley Sir Lennox Randal Francis Berkeley (12 May 190326 December 1989) was an English composer. Biography Berkeley was born on 12 May 1903 in Oxford, England, the younger child and only son of Aline Carla (1863–1935), daughter of Sir James Char ...

on a James Caird scholarship at the

. He gave his

Royal Festival Hall The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,700-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge, in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is a Grade I l ...

debut under Sir

Thomas Beecham Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet, Order of the Companions of Honour, CH (29 April 18798 March 1961) was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic and the Roya ...

and, in 1957, gave his

Wigmore Hall Wigmore Hall is a concert hall located at 36 Wigmore Street, London. Originally called Bechstein Hall, it specialises in performances of chamber music, early music, vocal music and song recitals. It is widely regarded as one of the world's leadin ...

debut: playing the

Diabelli Variations The ''33 Variations on a waltz by Anton Diabelli'', Op. 120, commonly known as the ''Diabelli Variations'', is a set of variations for the piano written between 1819 and 1823 by Ludwig van Beethoven on a waltz composed by Anton Diabelli. It for ...

Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...

. Later performances included works by

William Sterndale Bennett Sir William Sterndale Bennett (13 April 18161 February 1875) was an English composer, pianist, conductor and music educator. At the age of ten Bennett was admitted to the London Royal Academy of Music (RAM), where he remained for ten years. B ...

,Archived a
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Peter Wishart, and

John Maxwell Geddes John Maxwell Geddes (26 May 1941 – 7 September 2017) was a Scottish composer and academic. He taught in Scotland and in institutions in Europe and America; compositions include three symphonies. Life Geddes was born in Maryhill, Glasgow in 1941; ...

, among others. As a teacher, Kelly was much sought after: beginning his teaching career at the

in 1960, and teaching there for over 30 years (until his retirement in 1992). His former pupils include, among others, Peter Jacobs,

David Owen Norris David Owen Norris, (born 1953) is a British pianist, composer, academic, and broadcaster. Early life Norris was born in 1953 in Long Buckby in Northamptonshire, England, later attending Daventry Grammar School. He took lessons locally from c ...

Iain Burnside Iain Burnside is a Scottish classical pianist and accompanist, and a former presenter on BBC Radio 3. Following study at Merton College, Oxford, the Royal Academy of Music and the Chopin Academy, in Warsaw he became a freelance pianist, special ...

, and

Jonathan Plowright Jonathan Plowright (born 1959) is an English classical pianist. Life and career Plowright was born in Yorkshire, England. He was educated at Stonyhurst College, in Lancashire. He was a gold medallist at the Royal Academy of Music, London, where h ...

. He became head of the RAM's keyboard department in 1984. In addition to his teaching he also gave regular masterclasses at most of the major music colleges in the country and a series of his masterclasses were broadcast on Classic FM. He was on the judging panel of the:

Scottish International Piano Competition The Scottish International Piano Competition is a classical piano competition established in 1986 and taking place every three years in Glasgow, UK. The competition is open to pianists of any nationality aged between 18 and 30. Winners are awarded ...

Caird Scholarship Caird is a surname and may refer to: * Edward Caird, Scottish philosopher * G. B. Caird, Biblical scholar * James Caird (disambiguation) * John Caird (disambiguation) * Maureen Caird, Australian athlete * Mona Caird, English novelist and essayist ...

, and was an examiner for the

Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music The ABRSM (Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music) is an examination board and registered charity based in the United Kingdom. ABRSM is one of five examination boards accredited by Ofqual to award graded exams and diploma qualification ...

. Also active in the field of

chamber music Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small numb ...

he performed regularly with, amongst others, the violinist

Jean Harvey Jean Harvey, PhD, RDN, is currently the Robert L. Bickford, Jr. Endowed Professor, the Associate Dean for Research, and the Chair of the Department of Nutrition and Food Science in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at the University of Ve ...

, the tenor

Duncan Robertson Duncan John Robertson (born 6 February 1947) is a former New Zealand rugby union player. He represented Otago at a provincial level, making 104 appearances and playing most of his games at second five-eighth. Robertson was a member of the New ...

and the flautist

William Bennett William John Bennett (born July 31, 1943) is an American conservative politician and political commentator who served as secretary of education from 1985 to 1988 under President Ronald Reagan. He also held the post of director of the Office of ...

. In 1957 he married the cellist

Margaret Moncrieff Margaret Moncrieff (6 February 1921 – 12 November 2008) was a Scottish cellist and author writing under the pseudonym Helen McClelland and writing novels in the Chalet School series. Early life In 1921, Moncrieff was born as Helen Margaret Mo ...

and they had two daughters: the cellist Alison Moncrieff Kelly, and

Catriona Kelly Catriona Helen Moncrieff Kelly, FBA (born 6 October 1959) is a British academic specialising in Russian culture. From 1996 to 2021, she was Professor of Russian at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of New College. In 2021, she was elected s ...

, now a Professor of

Russian Literature Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia and its émigrés and to Russian language, Russian-language literature. The roots of Russian literature can be traced to the Middle Ages, when epics and chronicles in Old East Slavic were c ...

at New College,

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

. He also had two grandchildren, Camilla Davan-Wetton and Alexander Davan-Wetton. As a wedding present to Kelly and Moncrieff, the composer Peter Wishart wrote a Piano

Concerto A concerto (; plural ''concertos'', or ''concerti'' from the Italian plural) is, from the late Baroque era, mostly understood as an instrumental composition, written for one or more soloists accompanied by an orchestra or other ensemble. The typi ...

which Kelly premiered in Birmingham in 1958. Wishart's piano solo, "Opheis kai klimakes" (Snakes and Ladders) was written to celebrate Catriona's birth in 1959.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kelly, Alexander English classical pianists Male classical pianists 1929 births 1996 deaths Academics of the Royal Academy of Music Alumni of the Royal Academy of Music Piano pedagogues 20th-century classical pianists 20th-century English musicians 20th-century British male musicians