John Amis

John Amis

John Amis at a Critics' Circle luncheon, April 2010
Born John Preston Amis
17 June 1922
Dulwich, London
Died 1 August 2013 (aged 91)
Occupation Music critic
Nationality British
Genre Music criticism
Website
johnamismusic.blogspot.co.uk

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 and to BBC radio and television music programming.

Born in Dulwich, London to a banking family, Amis a cousin of the novelist Kingsley Amis, Amis was educated at Dulwich College, where he began a lifelong friendship with his contemporary, Donald Swann. A serious bout of mastoiditis 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 salesman, and orchestra manager (at one point turning pages for Dame Myra Hess during the wartime concerts at the National Gallery.[1]), before becoming a music critic, initially with The Scotsman in 1946. He was for several years manager for Sir Thomas Beecham, and also worked for the London Philharmonic Orchestra.[2]

In 1948, William Glock invited Amis to run a summer school for musicians at Bryanston School, Dorset. The summer school moved to 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, Igor Stravinsky, and Sir Michael Tippett.

Amis' short career as a tenor began with a minor role in the 1967 recording of Bernard Herrmann's cantata Moby-Dick. He made his operatic debut in 1990 as the Emperor in Turandot.[3] Amis had started singing in earnest after 1959: in that year he attended Frederick Husler's singing class at Dartington 'just for fun', and was told not only that he had the makings of a Heldentenor, but that he ought to go to Germany to study.[4]

From the 1950s onwards, Amis became a regular contributor to BBC Radio'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 panel show, My Music, replacing David Franklin. 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.[5] 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 and Felix Aprahamian, for whom he wrote a tribute following Aprahamian's death in January 2005.[6] He was also closely associated with Gerard Hoffnung 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.

Amis wrote a number of books, on his own Amiscellany imprint,[7] 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.[8] Amis was a patron of the Music Libraries Trust[9] and the Tait Memorial Trust,[10] and a vice-president of the Putney Music society.[11]

In 1949, Amis married the violinist Olive Zorian. The marriage was dissolved in 1955 and Zorian died in 1965.[12] He is survived by his partner for his last six years, Isla Baring OAM, Chairman of the Tait Memorial Trust of which he was a Patron.[13] He once said that she gave him his "Indian summer".[14] His funeral was held on 20 August 2013 at the Musicians' Church, St Sepulchre-without-Newgate in London.

References

  1. ↑ Celebration of Dame Myra Hess from the National Gallery (London)|National Gallery. Accessed 20 December 2006.
  2. ↑ Dennis Barker (2013-08-02). "John Amis obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 2015-01-13.
  3. ↑ John Amis biography on easy-speak.com. Accessed 20 December 2006.
  4. ↑ 'The Biter Bit', Radio Times, 6 May 1960, p. 5.
  5. ↑ List of Isaiah Berlin interviews from Oxford University. Accessed 20 December 2006.
  6. ↑ Amis' obituary for Felix Aprahamian, The Guardian. Accessed 20 December 2006.
  7. ↑ Amiscellany details on amolibros.com. Accessed 20 December 2006.
  8. ↑ Speaker's Agency page on Amis at the Wayback Machine (archived 19 August 2001), dated 21 January 2001, accessed via Internet Archive 20 December 2006.
  9. ↑ Music Libraries Trust list of patrons. Accessed 20 December 2006.
  10. ↑ Tait Memorial Trust. Accessed 7 September 2010.
  11. ↑ Putney Music society. Accessed 20 December 2006.
  12. ↑ Olive Zorian Biography. Accessed 7 September 2010.
  13. ↑ "Tait Memorial Trust". Tait Memorial Trust. 2013-08-09. Retrieved 2013-08-13.
  14. ↑ 2 August 2013 (2013-08-02). "John Amis". Telegraph. Retrieved 2013-08-13.

External links