Sydney Northcote (1897–1968) was a British musician, writer, editor, composer, arranger, adjudicator and administrator. He was born in

Bargoed Bargoed ( cy, Bargod) is a town and community in the Rhymney Valley, Wales, one of the South Wales Valleys. It lies on the Rhymney River in the county borough of Caerphilly. It straddles the ancient boundary of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, wit ...

, Glamorganshire,

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

Life

He attended Lewis School, Pengam and later studied at the

Royal College of Music The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the undergraduate to the doctoral level in all aspects of Western Music including performanc ...

in London. He took the Oxford B.Mus degree in 1923 and commenced D.Mus in 1932. For some twenty years he was Organist and Master of the Choristers at Heritage Crafts School in Chailey, Lewes, England; and from 1926 to 1941 he taught at 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 ...

in London. In 1941 he was appointed Music Advisor to the

Carnegie United Kingdom Trust The Carnegie United Kingdom Trust is an independent, endowed charitable trust based in Scotland that operates throughout Great Britain and Ireland. Originally established with an endowment from Andrew Carnegie in his birthplace of Dunfermline ...

. He died at the age of 70 in Croydon, Surrey, England, on 16 May 1968. An obituary appeared in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

''. As a writer on music, he championed the cause of the English composer C.W. Orr, and contributed articles to the 5th Edition of ''

Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theo ...

'' (MacMillan, 1954). He wrote a number of books, including ''The Ballad in Music – Byrd to Britten'' (Norwood Editions, 1977), ''A Survey of English Song'' (Baker, 1966) and ''The Songs of Henri Duparc'' (Dobson, 1949). As an editor he was responsible for ''The New Imperial Edition of Solo Songs'' (Boosey and Hawkes, 1949) and jointly with E.T. Davies, ''Caneuon Cenedlaethol Cymru - National Songs of Wales'' (Boosey & Hawkes, 1959), contributing 43 of his own arrangements to this volume. As an adjudicator, he regularly visited a number of countries, including Canada; in 1963 he adjudicated at the Winnipeg Music Festival, and in Lethbridge, Alberta; and for many years he was a popular adjudicator in Trinidad and Tobago. At the Trinidad Music Festival in 1950, he was impressed with the standard of performance of the young musicians whom he listened to, and dismayed at the lack of an adequate performance venue for them; together with Helen May Johnstone, President of the Trinidad Music Association, he began to lobby the British Government for improved facilities, and was influential in helping to raise funds for the project from the UK Carnegie Trust. As a result of these efforts, the Queen's Hall was opened in

Port-of-Spain Port of Spain (Spanish: ''Puerto España''), officially the City of Port of Spain (also stylized Port-of-Spain), is the capital of Trinidad and Tobago and the third largest municipality, after Chaguanas and San Fernando. The city has a municip ...

in 1959.

References

Obituary, Welsh Music – Cerddoriaeth Cymru, Vol/Cyf 3 number/rhif 3, 1968

External links

History of the Queen’s Hall by Mariel Brown
{{DEFAULTSORT:Northcote, Sydney 1897 births 1968 deaths Welsh classical organists Academics of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama Welsh classical composers Welsh male classical composers 20th-century Welsh musicians Welsh male non-fiction writers 20th-century British male musicians