Raphael Terroni was born in 1945, and studied the piano with John Vallier and Cyril Smith. For fifteen years he was Head of Piano at the London College of Music and Media, and examined and adjudicated at music festivals in Britain and abroad. He worked with broadcaster Richard Baker, giving first performances in Britain of several works for narrator and piano. He was active in concerts worldwide, and appeared at major festivals as a soloist, accompanist and chamber-music player. A founder member of the British Music Society, he served two terms as the society’s chairman, and made several critically acclaimed recordings of music by British composers, Lennox Berkeley, Robin Milford, Howard Ferguson, Josef Holbrooke, Eric Coates and Arthur Butterworth among them. His 1989 recording of piano quintets by Cyril Scott and Frank Bridge with the Bingham Quartet was issued on CD for the first time shortly after his untimely death in 2012.

The Scottish-born pianist Norman Beedie was one of the last students of the great musician and teacher, Nadia Boulanger, who described him as “a real artist, a real musician!” A United Kingdom national prizewinner, he has since performed as concerto soloist, in chamber music, and as an accompanist to instrumentalists as well as singers in the United Kingdom, Europe and the Far East. He is also an orchestral, operatic and choral conductor of distinction with an extremely varied repertoire, including Lyatoshinsky’s Second Symphony and Grofé’s Grand Canyon Suite. He conducted the first Ukrainian performance of Rubbra’s Violin Concerto and the United Kingdom première of Dmitri-Missis Plessas’ oratorio St Paul. Norman Beedie is a sought-after teacher, mentor and educator—many of his students have won prizes in international competitions—and is at present developing Improvisation as a core subject for musicians at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. He has given masterclasses in the United Kingdom, Europe, the Far East and the United States.

Of aristocratic English and remoter French ancestry, Lennox Berkeley turned his serious attention to music while at Oxford, having his first professional lessons thereafter with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, on the advice of Ravel. He enjoyed early friendship with his younger contemporary Benjamin Britten, some of whose musical predilections he shared; he largely avoided the national pastoral trends of some contemporary English music. He was knighted in 1974.

Operas

Berkeley’s first opera, Nelson, was staged at Sadler’s Wells in 1954. In the same year A Dinner Engagement was mounted at Aldeburgh, where the third of his four operas, Ruth, was given in 1956, followed in 1967 by Castaway.

Orchestral Music

In 1937 Berkeley collaborated with Britten in Mont Juic, a suite of Catalan dances. Later orchestral compositions include concertos for piano, for flute, for violin and for guitar. He also wrote four symphonies.

Vocal and Choral Music

Berkeley’s choral music ranges from the oratorio Jonah of 1935, which he later withdrew, to settings for the Catholic Latin liturgy, to which he himself was devoted, and for the Church of England.

Chamber and Instrumental Music

Berkeley wrote pieces for violin and piano, for solo piano, and music for various instrumental ensembles, including string quartets and a wind quintet.