Music lovers who knew Joan Burns will feel a gap in their lives following her death at the age of 91. For 70 years as a classical pianist, lecturer extraordinaire and the centre of a great network of followers, Joan made music and the love of friends the focus of her life – and, often, theirs. In 1994 this work led to her being appointed MBE.
Born in Hulme, Manchester, at a time of severe poverty in the area, she showed early promise and became a piano pupil of Robert Gregory of the Northern School of Music (now the Royal Northern College of Music). At Manchester Central high school she made a group of lifelong friends. Encouraged in her hope to become a concert pianist, by her early 20s she was giving recitals in Manchester and the north and had made a debut in London. She continued to develop as a performer, studying with eminent teachers in Vienna and London.
I first met Joan in 1947, when, as a reporter on a weekly paper in Manchester, I interviewed her. I followed this up with a piece for the London Evening News when she made her Wigmore Hall debut in the early 1950s.
Invited to teach music appreciation with the Workers' Educational Association and music societies, Joan honed her natural gift for speaking. She developed a style and humour that encouraged participation and enjoyment. She loved a good argument, and her socialist principles were a subtext that spiced it.
Arthritis compelled her to give up the keyboard, but she continued to work in music appreciation and built up her own following for travel and study in Europe and the US, especially to New York for Wagner at the Metropolitan Opera. Vienna was her second home city, with its living tradition of romantic-era music. To celebrate her 90th birthday, in 2012, she made a farewell visit there with friends.
Joan had a full programme for 2013, and had been hoping to finish the year with a week of analysing the work of four great pianists – Beethoven, Liszt, Chopin and Rachmaninov – through recordings. She was reluctant to cancel it, but her energy had gone and her frailty increased.
Her marriage to Stanley Raymond in 1947 ended in divorce 15 years later. She formed a long partnership with Graham Wilcox until his death in 1985. Reported by guardian.co.uk 6 hours ago.
Born in Hulme, Manchester, at a time of severe poverty in the area, she showed early promise and became a piano pupil of Robert Gregory of the Northern School of Music (now the Royal Northern College of Music). At Manchester Central high school she made a group of lifelong friends. Encouraged in her hope to become a concert pianist, by her early 20s she was giving recitals in Manchester and the north and had made a debut in London. She continued to develop as a performer, studying with eminent teachers in Vienna and London.
I first met Joan in 1947, when, as a reporter on a weekly paper in Manchester, I interviewed her. I followed this up with a piece for the London Evening News when she made her Wigmore Hall debut in the early 1950s.
Invited to teach music appreciation with the Workers' Educational Association and music societies, Joan honed her natural gift for speaking. She developed a style and humour that encouraged participation and enjoyment. She loved a good argument, and her socialist principles were a subtext that spiced it.
Arthritis compelled her to give up the keyboard, but she continued to work in music appreciation and built up her own following for travel and study in Europe and the US, especially to New York for Wagner at the Metropolitan Opera. Vienna was her second home city, with its living tradition of romantic-era music. To celebrate her 90th birthday, in 2012, she made a farewell visit there with friends.
Joan had a full programme for 2013, and had been hoping to finish the year with a week of analysing the work of four great pianists – Beethoven, Liszt, Chopin and Rachmaninov – through recordings. She was reluctant to cancel it, but her energy had gone and her frailty increased.
Her marriage to Stanley Raymond in 1947 ended in divorce 15 years later. She formed a long partnership with Graham Wilcox until his death in 1985. Reported by guardian.co.uk 6 hours ago.