IN MEMORY
IN MEMORY Alumna Jacquie Currie studied at the RCM between 1968 and 1973. She worked with the English Opera Group and Royal Opera House, among others, and performed the role of Adele in Kiss Me Kate alongside Zoe Wanamaker at the Oxford Playhouse in 1974. She later studied with the Open University and Sussex University, leading to a second career in social work. Following retirement in 2014 she re-launched her teaching practice. She died on 31 August 2016, aged 67.
LEAVING A LEGACY The Royal College of Music would like to thank all those who have remembered the RCM in their will and left a musical legacy for future generations to enjoy. For more information on leaving a legacy to the RCM, please contact Louise Birrell on 020 7591 4743 or louise.birrell@rcm.ac.uk
Former Registry Services Manager Jane Fisher-Hunt made a significant contribution to the RCM. She worked at the College between 1998 and 2001, before moving to the University of Cambridge, where she worked as a faculty administrator within the School of the Humanities and Social Sciences. She died on 28 August 2016. Geoffrey Ford was born on 23 September 1931. A talented boy soprano, he had a keen interest in music and theatre. Geoffrey was awarded a place at the RCM to study violin in 1950. He was a music teacher for more than 30 years at Charterhouse, where he was head of strings and artistic director of the Ben Travers Theatre. Retiring from Charterhouse in 1992, he went on to run the Godalming Musical Festival and become a soughtafter violin tutor. He died on 10 August 2016. Alasdair Graham was born in Glasgow on 19 April 1934. He showed an early interest in music and later represented Scotland at the Festival of Britain in 1951. He attended the University of Edinburgh and Vienna State Academy, and studied with Peter Katin. During a career as a concert pianist, he worked with Sir Malcolm Sargent and Sir Charles Groves and also at the BBC Proms. He joined the RCM as a piano professor and was valued for his reliable judgements and dry sense of humour. He was awarded honorary membership of the RCM for his services to music and retired in 2003. He died on 25 July 2016. The sixth Duke of Westminster, Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, was born in Omagh on 22 December 1951, and attended Harrow School. He became a trustee of the Grosvenor Estate at age 27. He married Natalia Phillips in 1978 with whom he had four children. He helped more than 1,500 charities through the Westminster Foundation, was president of the Royal National Institute of Blind People and St John Ambulance and was made an OBE in 1994 for his work in the Territorial Army. He died on 9 August 2016. He gave valuable advice to the RCM, as did his ancestor, the first Duke of Westminster, who was one of the RCM’s founding fathers.
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UPBEAT AUTUMN 2016
Alan Loveday was born in New Zealand on 29 February 1928. He began playing the violin at the age of two and was awarded a scholarship to the RCM in 1944. In 1946, he made his BBC Proms debut with the London Symphony Orchestra and Adrian Boult. He continued to appear at the Proms until 1972. He joined the Academy of St Martin in the Fields in 1965, with whom he released Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. Alan died on 12 April. Renowned conductor Sir Neville Marriner was born on 15 April 1924. He studied violin at the RCM and Paris Conservatoire, later joining the LSO. He founded the Academy of St Martin in the Fields in 1958 and was music director until 2011, when he became life president. His conducting career began in 1969, following studies in the USA where he founded the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. He worked with orchestras around the globe and was music director and principal conductor of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra and the Südwest Deutsche Radio Orchestra. He was made a Companion of Honour in 2015. He died on 2 October 2016. Alberto Remedios was a leading British tenor who performed in the world’s greatest opera houses. Alberto left school at 15 and worked in a Merseyside shipyard before auditioning to join Sadler’s Wells Opera, where the management encouraged him to study at the RCM, which he attended in the 1950s. Best known for Wagner heldentenor repertoire, he sang Siegfried in Reginald Goodall’s celebrated Ring Cycle with English National Opera. He was appointed a CBE in 1981. Alberto died on 11 June 2016. Former RCM clarinet professor Basil Tschaikov was a respected orchestral musician, holding positions as second clarinet with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (1943–47) and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (1947–55). He was chairman of the Philharmonia Orchestra and later became Director of the National Centre for Orchestral Studies. He died on 14 September at the age of 91. Robin Wells studied at the RCM, becoming a graduate of the Royal Schools of Music and a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists. In 1965 he joined Charterhouse as an assistant music master and later became Director of Music, retiring in 2003. He was also an examiner for ABRSM for many years. He was Chairman of Godalming Music Festival and also worked with the Petersfield Musical Festival, Godalming Operatic Society and Farnham and Bourne Choral Society. He died on 28 July 2016.