Sidney Griller

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 ...

(10 January 1911 – 20 November 1993) was an English violinist. He was leader of the

Griller Quartet The Griller String Quartet was a British musical ensemble particularly active from 1931 to c.1961 or 1963, when it was disbanded. The quartet was in residence at the University of California at Berkeley from 1949 to 1961. It performed a wide repert ...

from 1928 to 1963, and a teacher of chamber music 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 ...

Life

Griller was born in 1911; his parents were Jewish immigrants, with a shop in the

East End of London The East End of London, often referred to within the London area simply as the East End, is the historic core of wider East London, east of the Roman and medieval walls of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It does not have uni ...

. Aged 13, he won a scholarship to the

.Obituary: Sidney Griller
''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'', 23 November 1993. Retrieved 23 November 2018. In 1928 he founded the

Percy A. Scholes Percy Alfred Scholes PhD OBE (24 July 1877 – 31 July 1958) (pronounced ''skolz'') was an English musician, journalist and prolific writer, whose best-known achievement was his compilation of the first edition of ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' ...

. "Griller, Sidney". ''Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music''. Oxford University Press, 1964. coached initially by the viola player Lionel Tertis. By 1931 the quartet established a reputation in Europe. In January 1931 they made a debut in

New York City Hall New York City Hall is the Government of New York City, seat of New York City government, located at the center of City Hall Park in the Civic Center, Manhattan, Civic Center area of Lower Manhattan, between Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway, Park R ...

, and subsequently obtained a contract with NBC. The quartet played classics and contemporary works, and made recordings. In 1931 Griller married Honor Linton; they had a son and daughter. During the Second World War the quartet gave many concerts for the RAF. In 1949 they became resident quartet at

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

. In 1945 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music (FRAM). Griller was appointed CBE in 1951. The quartet disbanded in 1963; in 1964 he returned to the Royal Academy of Music, teaching chamber music, and his classes began the careers of a number of successful string quartets including the

Alberni Quartet The Alberni Quartet is a British string quartet, whose members have included: * 1st violin Dennis Simons, then Howard Davis, currently Karin Leishman * 2nd violin Howard Davis, then John Knight, then Peter Pople, currently Victoria Sayles * Viol ...

, the

Coull Quartet The Coull Quartet is an England, English string quartet that was founded at the Royal Academy of Music, London in 1974 under the guidance of renowned quartet leader, Sidney Griller. They were appointed Quartet-in-Residence by the University of ...

, the Fitzwilliam Quartet and the

Lindsay Quartet The Lindsay String Quartet (or The Lindsays) was a British string quartet from 1965 to 2005. History The quartet first performed at the Royal Academy of Music in 1965 to compete for a prize and set out to make the string quartets of Bartók a ...

. He also gave chamber music classes at the Yehudi Menuhin School. In 1981 at the

University of York , mottoeng = On the threshold of wisdom , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £8.0 million , budget = £403.6 million , chancellor = Heather Melville , vice_chancellor = Charlie Jeffery , students ...

he received an honorary doctorate from the Fitzwilliam Quartet, the resident quartet there. After retirement from the Royal Academy of Music in 1986, he gave masterclasses at the

Royal Northern College of Music The Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) is a conservatoire located in Manchester, England. It is one of four conservatoires associated with the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music. In addition to being a centre of music education ...

, and sat on juries of international competitions. Griller died in London in 1993, aged 82.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Griller, Sidney 1911 births 1993 deaths Musicians from London Jewish classical violinists Alumni of the Royal Academy of Music Academics of the Royal Academy of Music Fellows of the Royal Academy of Music 20th-century classical violinists English classical violinists Commanders of the Order of the British Empire