Lynne Walker (critic)

For the Australian politician, see Lynne Walker (politician).

Lynne Walker (24 October 1956 – 10 February 2011) was a British music and theatre critic who also had experience as a broadcaster.

Born in Edinburgh, she attended the Mary Erskine School. She won a medal at the end of her time at Napier College in 1976,[1] and gained a degree from the Huddersfield School of Music (now part of Huddersfield University).[2] It was at this time that Walker became drawn to the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, and gained a scholarship to study choral conducting in France under Arthur Oldham.[1]

Her early career was as a musician, but she migrated to marketing and publicity in the early 1980s working for the Scottish National Orchestra and later for the Royal Exchange theatre in Manchester (1987–94).[3] In 1991 she began her own editorial consultancy Edgewise with the music critic Gerald Larner, whom she had married in 1989. Simultaneously she had begun a freelance career in journalism and broadcasting. For about a decade, until the programme was dropped in 1998, she was a contributor to (and for its last two years presenter) of the BBC Radio 4 arts magazine Kaleidoscope.[3] She also hosted the Radio 3 programme In Tune.

By 2000 she was a more regular contributor to The Independent, responsible for the newspaper's coverage of theatre events at the Edinburgh Festival, feature articles and arts criticism[2] with an emphasis on the north of England.

Lynne Walker died in Alderley Edge, Cheshire having suffered from cancer.[3]

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 Kenneth Walton "Obituary: Lynne Walker, journalist", The Scotsman, 23 Febryaru 2011
  2. 2.0 2.1 Conrad Wilson "Lynne Walker; Critic and broadcaster", The Herald (Glasgow), 22 February 2011
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 Hilary Finch "Lynne Walker: Music and theatre critic for The Independent", The Independent, 22 February 2011