John Hosier

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(18 November 1928 – 28 March 2000) was an English musical educator. He was born with stunted fingers so was unable to play most musical instruments himself. Later in life, when asked about his hands by children, he said he used to bite his fingernails too much.

Early life

John Hosier was born in the northwest London suburb of

Kingsbury Kingsbury may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Kingsbury, London, a district of northwest London in the borough of Brent ** Kingsbury tube station, London Underground station * Kingsbury, Warwickshire, a village and civil parish in Warwickshi ...

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbour ...

. His father, Harry Hosier, was the co-founder of the building firm Hosier and Dickinson alongside G.W. Dickinson, a Master Builder. His mother, Constance, was a violinist. She overcame the problem of his playing a musical instrument by teaching him to play the

xylophone The xylophone (; ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Like the glockenspiel (which uses metal bars), the xylophone essentially consists of a set of tuned wooden keys arranged in ...

. He attended Fryent Primary School, Kingsbury, Preston Manor County Grammar School, now Preston Manor High School,

Wembley Wembley () is a large suburbIn British English, "suburb" often refers to the secondary urban centres of a city. Wembley is not a suburb in the American sense, i.e. a single-family residential area outside of the city itself. in north-west Londo ...

and St John's College, Cambridge where he also served as a director of

Footlights Cambridge University Footlights Dramatic Club, commonly referred to simply as the Footlights, is an amateur theatrical club in Cambridge, England, founded in 1883 and run by the students of Cambridge University. History Footlights' inaugural ...

from 1950–1951.

Career

Hosier's career began in 1953 when he was appointed as a music producer for

BBC Radio BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927). The service provides national radio stations covering ...

for schools, a position he held until 1959. Then from 1960 until 1973 he worked in BBC Television for schools. He was producer of the Schools Television programme ''Music Time''. From 1973 until 1976, he was the inspector for

Inner London Education Authority The Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) was an ad hoc local education authority for the City of London and the 12 Inner London boroughs from 1965 until its abolition in 1990. The authority was reconstituted as a directly elected body corp ...

and the director of the Centre for Young Musicians. From 1978 until 1989, he was the principal of the

Guildhall School of Music and Drama The Guildhall School of Music and Drama is a conservatoire and drama school located in the City of London, United Kingdom. Established in 1880, the school offers undergraduate and postgraduate training in all aspects of classical music and jazz ...

at the

Barbican Arts Centre The Barbican Centre is a performing arts centre in the Barbican Estate of the City of London and the largest of its kind in Europe. The centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and art exhib ...

. During the trial of the musician

Philip Pickett Philip Pickett (born 17 November 1950) is an English musician. Pickett was director of early music ensembles including the New London Consort, and taught at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He played recorders, shawms and similar in ...

, it emerged that the parents of one of the students raped by Pickett had written to Hosier to complain. The parents were told to take their child elsewhere for lessons. The following year, the Guildhall awarded Pickett a Fellowship, one of its highest honours. In 1986, Hosier worked with Leonard Bernstein for the Barbican Centre's Leonard Bernstein Festival. He became a

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...

in 1984. In 1989 he was appointed Director of the

Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (HKAPA) (Chinese: 香港演藝學院) is a provider of tertiary education in Hong Kong. Located near the north coast of Wan Chai on Hong Kong Island, the main campus also functions as a venue for pe ...

, a position he held for five years until 1993. He was director of the Early Music Centre in London from 1994 until his death in 2000. He was married to Biddy Baxter, the editor of the BBC's children's television programme '' Blue Peter'' for nearly 25 years. In 2003, Baxter established the John Hosier Music Trust which offers scholarships to students to take up post-graduate studies.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hosier, John 1928 births 2000 deaths Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge Commanders of the Order of the British Empire British music educators English radio producers English television producers Academics of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama People from Kingsbury, London 20th-century English musicians Presidents of the Independent Society of Musicians