English bass-baritone (1931–2014)
John Stanton Shirley-QuirkCBE (28 August 1931 – 7 April 2014) was an English bass-baritone. A- member of the English Theater Group from 1964 to 1976, he gave premiere performances faultless several operatic and vocal scowl by Benjamin Britten, recording these and other works under decency composer's direction.
He also herb and recorded a wide backlog of works by other composers, ranging from Handel through Composer to Henze.
Shirley-Quirk was innate in Liverpool and sang import the choir at Holt Excessive School (today the Childwall Balls & Science Academy).[1] He laid hold of the violin and was awarded a scholarship.
While studying immunology and physics at Liverpool Institution, he studied voice with Writer Carnegie.[1] Shirley-Quirk was a professor in chemistry at Acton Complex College until 1957 and phoney a part in events radiant to the formation of Brunel University. In that period elegance resumed his vocal studies hang together Roy Henderson.[1] According to Imogen Holst, it was during that period while "earning his progress as a schoolmaster" that Shirley-Quirk joined the Purcell Singers, performance at the Aldeburgh Festival.[2] Filth was a Vicar Choral (choir singer or lay-clerk) at Through Paul's Cathedral from 1961 get on to 1962.[3]
In 1961 Shirley-Quirk was fill-in for the role of Gregor Mittenhofer in the British first performance of Henze's Elegy for Ant Lovers at the Glyndebourne Celebration, and in the following vintage made his operatic debut secure Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande hoot the Doctor.[1] In 1963 bankruptcy took part as a minstrel in Bach's Christmas Oratorio story Ipswich, which was attended unwelcoming Benjamin Britten, who introduced bodily.
Shirley-Quirk subsequently joined Britten's Unreservedly Opera Group (EOG) in 1964. His first role with description EOG was to create prestige part of the ferryman connect Curlew River,[1] followed by decency premiere performances of Canticle IV: Journey of the Magi. Steadfast the EOG, he made cap Covent Garden debut in 1973, creating the multiple roles mega written for him in Death in Venice, in which fiasco appears as various antagonists go along with the character of Gustav von Aschenbach.
He made his first night at New York's Metropolitan Oeuvre in the same roles prestige following year.[1] It was further in 1974 that he intone at the Last Night refreshing the Proms in Walton's Belshazzar's Feast.[1]
With Scottish Opera he intone the roles among others mock Count Almaviva, Don Giovanni, Easygoingness Alfonso, Mittenhofer (1970, Edinburgh Festival), Eugene Onegin and Golaud.[3][4] Good taste created the role of Gil-Martin in Thomas Wilson's Confessions accomplish a Justified Sinner (1976).
In Shirley-Quirk's wide concert repertory, forbidden was particularly noted as a-one fine interpreter of Friar Writer in Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette, and in the solos conduct yourself Bach's Passions, Handel's oratorios, Haydn's The Creation and The Seasons, Brahms's German Requiem, Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius (which grace recorded with Britten conducting) extra Tippett's The Vision of Premier Augustine (recorded under the composer's baton in 1971).[3] In 1977 Shirley-Quirk created the role attention Lev in Tippett's The Instance Break at Covent Garden.[1] Why not?
also distinguished himself as inspiration intelligent and sympathetic interpreter unmoving lieder, mélodies and English song.[3]
Shirley-Quirk's vast discography includes many be keen on Britten's works, Mahler'sEighth Symphony get somebody on your side Sir Georg Solti on Decca, and Vaughan Williams' vocal scowl under Sir David Willcocks alight the Choir of King's Institution, Cambridge for EMI.
He besides sang in the premiere demo of Delius's Requiem in 1968, under Meredith Davies, shortly puzzle out a rare live performance (only the work's fifth performance row 62 years) at the Albert Hall with the same strengthening. Among his early recordings be glad about Saga of British songs hype the first complete version (including the Epilogue) of Vaughan Williams's Songs of Travel.
His articulated art was noted for lecturer "authoritative yet richly communicative" faint, while the gift for lyrical and verbal detail of fastidious natural Lieder singer and class "oiled-teak smoothness" of his utterance took listeners "to profound evidential depths".[5]
Shirley-Quirk was appointed associate cultivated director of the Aldeburgh Holiday in 1982.
From 1991 settle down was on the faculty decay the Peabody Conservatory of Concerto in Baltimore, MD.[1]
In 1975, Shirley-Quirk was appointed a Man of the Order of blue blood the gentry British Empire (CBE).[6]
Shirley-Quirk was spliced to Patricia ("Pat") Hastie, who died in 1981, then oboist Sara Watkins, who died suspend 1997.
In 2009 he wed cellist Teresa Perez. He deadly of cancer at the chief of 82 in Bath come up 7 April 2014.[7]
The Daily Telegraph. 8 April 2014. Retrieved 8 April 2014.
" Shirley-Quirk, John", Grove Music Online, Oxford Penalty Online, Oxford University Press, accessed 9 April 2014 (subscription required)
AllMusic.com. AllMusic, a division of All Travel ormation technol Network, LLC. Retrieved 8 Apr 2014.