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John Preston Amis (17 June 1922 – 1 August 2013) was a British broadcaster, classical music critic, music administrator, and writer. He was a frequent contributor for ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' and to
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
radio and television music programming.
Life and career
Born in
Dulwich
Dulwich (; ) is an area in south London, England. The settlement is mostly in the London Borough of Southwark, with parts in the London Borough of Lambeth, and consists of Dulwich Village, East Dulwich, West Dulwich, and the Southwark half ...
, London to a banking family, and a cousin of the novelist
Kingsley Amis
Sir Kingsley William Amis (16 April 1922 – 22 October 1995) was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, short stories, radio and television scripts, and works of social a ...
, Amis was educated at
Dulwich College
Dulwich College is a 2–19 Independent school (United Kingdom), independent, Day school, day and boarding school for Single-sex education, boys in Dulwich, London, England. As a Public school (United Kingdom), public school, it began as the Col ...
, where he began a lifelong friendship with his contemporary,
Donald Swann
Donald Ibrahim Swann (30 September 1923 – 23 March 1994) was a British composer, musician, singer and entertainer. He was one half of Flanders and Swann, writing and performing comic songs with Michael Flanders.
Life
Donald Swann was born ...
. A serious bout of
mastoiditis
Mastoiditis is the result of an infection that extends to the air cells of the skull behind the ear. Specifically, it is an inflammation of the mucosal lining of the mastoid antrum and mastoid air cell system inside the mastoid process. The ma ...
as a child left him deaf in his left ear. He began his career working in a bank for five and a half weeks before leaving to earn a living in music. Amis had a number of roles, including
gramophone record
A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts ne ...
salesman, and orchestra manager (at one point turning pages for Dame
Myra Hess
Dame Julia Myra Hess, (25 February 1890 – 25 November 1965) was an English pianist best known for her performances of the works of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schumann.
Career Early life
Julia Myra Hess was born on 25 February 1890 to a J ...
during the wartime concerts at the
National Gallery
The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director ...
.), before becoming a music critic, initially with ''
The Scotsman
''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until August 2004. Its pare ...
'' in 1946. He was for several years manager for
Sir Thomas Beecham
Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet, CH (29 April 18798 March 1961) was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic orchestras. He was also closely associated with th ...
, and also worked for the
London Philharmonic Orchestra.
In 1948,
William Glock
Sir William Frederick Glock, CBE (3 May 190828 June 2000) was a British music critic and musical administrator who was instrumental in introducing the Continental avant-garde, notably promoting the career of Pierre Boulez.
Biography
Glock was bo ...
invited Amis to run a summer school for musicians at
Bryanston School
Bryanston School is a public school (English independent day and boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) located next to the village of Bryanston, and near the town of Blandford Forum, in Dorset in South West England. It was founded in 1928. ...
, Dorset. The summer school moved to
Dartington
Dartington is a village in Devon, England. Its population is 876. The electoral ward of ''Dartington'' includes the surrounding area and had a population of 1,753 at the 2011 census. It is located west of the River Dart, south of Dartington ...
in 1953. Amis remained administrative director until 1981, during which time he brought to the school a long line of international musicians, amongst them
Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith (; 16 November 189528 December 1963) was a German composer, music theorist, teacher, violist and conductor. He founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring extensively in Europe. As a composer, he became a major advocate of the ' ...
,
Igor Stravinsky, and Sir
Michael Tippett
Sir Michael Kemp Tippett (2 January 1905 – 8 January 1998) was an English composer who rose to prominence during and immediately after the Second World War. In his lifetime he was sometimes ranked with his contemporary Benjamin Britten ...
.
Amis' short career as a
tenor
A tenor is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The low extreme for tenors is wide ...
began with the role of Ishmael in the 1967 recording of
Bernard Herrmann
Bernard Herrmann (born Maximillian Herman; June 29, 1911December 24, 1975) was an American composer and conductor best known for his work in composing for films. As a conductor, he championed the music of lesser-known composers. He is widely r ...
's
cantata ''
Moby-Dick
''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'' is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is the sailor Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship ''Pequod'', for revenge against Moby Dick, the giant whi ...
''. He made his
opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...
tic debut in 1990 as the Emperor in ''
Turandot
''Turandot'' (; see below) is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, posthumously completed by Franco Alfano in 1926, and set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni. ''Turandot'' best-known aria is " Nessun dorma", ...
''. Amis had started singing in earnest after 1959: in that year he attended Professor Frederick Husler'
s singing class at Dartington 'just for fun', and was told not only that he had the makings of a ''
Heldentenor
A heldentenor (; English: ''heroic tenor''), earlier called tenorbariton, is an operatic tenor voice, most often associated with Wagnerian repertoire.
It is distinct from other tenor '' fächer'' by its endurance, volume, and dark timbre, which ...
'', but that he ought to go to Germany to study.
From the 1950s onwards, Amis became a regular contributor to
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 ...
's music output, and worked on BBC Television from 1961, producing and presenting documentaries, and introducing the
BBC2 magazine programme ''Music Now''. As a broadcaster, he is probably best known for his appearances as a team member, from 1974 to 1994, on the
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...
panel show, ''
My Music'', also appearing in the television version. It was on this show that he disclosed an unexpected talent as a skilled siffleur. His own radio show on
Radio 3 interviewed musicians and contemporary witnesses such as
Sir Isaiah Berlin. For many years he wrote a column on music in ''The Tablet'', England's best-known Catholic magazine.
His friends in the music industry included
Noel Mewton-Wood
Noel Mewton-Wood (20 November 19225 December 1953) was an Australian-born concert pianist who achieved international fame on the basis of many distinguished concerto recordings during his short life.
Life and career
Born in Melbourne, he studied ...
and
Felix Aprahamian
Felix Aprahamian ( arm, Ֆելիքս Աբրահամեան; 5 June 1914 – 15 January 2005), born Apraham Felix Bartev Aprahamian, was an English music critic, writer, concert promoter, publisher's adviser, supporter of young musicians, and frien ...
, for whom he wrote a tribute following Aprahamian's death in January 2005. He was also closely associated with
Gerard Hoffnung
Gerard Hoffnung (22 March 192528 September 1959) was an artist and musician, best known for his humorous works.
Raised in Germany, Hoffnung was brought to London as a boy, to escape the Nazis. Over the next two decades in England, he became kno ...
and organized many of Hoffnung's concerts until the latter's death in 1959; he performed a comic duet from ''The Barber of Darmstadt'' with
Owen Brannigan at the 1961 Hoffnung Festival. As a critic, Amis often came across contemporaries including
Neville Cardus
Sir John Frederick Neville Cardus, Commander of the Order of the British Empire, CBE (2 April 188828 February 1975) was an English writer and critic. From an impoverished home background, and mainly self-educated, he became ''The Manchester Gua ...
(''Manchester Guardian''),
Frank Howes
Frank Stewart Howes (2 April 1891 – 28 September 1974) was an English music critic. From 1943 to 1960 he was chief music critic of ''The Times''. From his student days Howes gravitated towards criticism as his musical specialism, guided by the a ...
(''The Times''), Scott Goddard (''News Chronicle'') and
Richard Capell
Richard Capell (23 March 188521 June 1954) was a British journalist who was music critic for the ''Daily Mail'' (1911–1933) and thereafter at ''The Daily Telegraph''."Obituary in ''The Times'', ''Mr. Richard Capell'', 22 June 1954, p.10
Biogr ...
(''Telegraph'').
Amis wrote a number of books, on his own Amiscellany imprint, with titles including ''My Music in London: 1945-2000''. Amis spent much of his time giving talks and one-man shows, after dinner speeches and concert works. Amis was a patron of the Music Libraries Trust and the
Tait Memorial Trust, and a vice-president of the Putney Music society.
Personal life
In June 1948, Amis married the violinist
Olive Zorian
Olive Nevart Zorian (16 March 1916 in Manchester – 17 May 1965 in London) was an English classical violinist.
She was the youngest daughter of Samuel Hovannes Zorian and Ada Mary Zorian. Samuel was an Armenian hosiery manufacturer and musi ...
, founder of the
Zorian String Quartet. The marriage was dissolved in 1955 and Zorian died in 1965.
In the later years of his life, Amis took up with his partner, Isla Baring OAM, Chairman of the
Tait Memorial Trust of which he was a Patron. He once said that she gave him his "Indian summer".
Death and legacy
John Amis died on 1 August 2013. He was survived by his partner for his last six years, Isla Baring. His funeral was held on 20 August 2013 at the Musicians' Church,
St Sepulchre-without-Newgate in London.
In his memory, the Tait Memorial Trust inaugurated the John Amis Award, a scholarship to support students at the
Dartington International Summer School.
References
External links
John Amis' official blog*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Amis, John
1922 births
2013 deaths
John
John is a common English name and surname:
* John (given name)
* John (surname)
John may also refer to:
New Testament
Works
* Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John
* First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John
* Secon ...
BBC radio presenters
BBC television presenters
Classical music radio presenters
English music critics
English music journalists
English radio personalities
The Guardian journalists
People educated at Dulwich College
People from Dulwich
Writers from London
English male non-fiction writers