OBITUARIES

JOHN GEORGIADIS

The British violinist a nd conductor John G eorgiadis has died a t the age of 81. As a violinist he is best remembered as the concertmaster of the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) from 1965 to 1973, and then from 1977 to 1979. He was also a successful conductor, working with orchestras around the world including three years as music director of the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra (BSO).

Born in 1939 in Essex, Georgiadis began playing the violin aged six. He learnt with local teacher Vanna Brown before entering London’s Royal Academy of Music, studying with Frederick Grinke. He also spent a year with René Benedetti in Paris. His first appointment as concertmaster was with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra from 1963 to 1965, when he left to take up the same position at the LSO. In 1972 the London Virtuosi Chamber Ensemble was founded, with Georgiadis as its original concertmaster.

During his four-year hiatus from the concertmaster’s chair, Georgiadis began conducting, starting with youth orchestras and education work with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

He spent eight years learning the art of conducting under Sergiu Celibidache. This led to a second career touring the world as a conductor. Apart from conducting the London Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra, his first position as music director was with the Bristol Sinfonia, from 1982 to 1984. In 1992 he was approached by the BSO, which he led from 1994 to 1996.

He was also a regular guest conductor of the Malaysian Philharmonic, an orchestra he helped set up when travelling the world as an auditioner in the late 1990s.

From 1988 to 1999 Georgiadis toured in a recital duo with pianist Antony Peebles. However, he retired from professional playing in the early 2000s, to concentrate solely on conducting.

His autobiography, Bow to Baton: A Leader’s Life, was published in 2019.

Georgiadis received an honorary doctorate from the University of Essex in 1990. For eleven years from 1982, he was principal conductor of the Essex Youth Orchestra, and from 1987 to 1990 was first violinist of the Gabrieli Quartet, which had a long association with the university.

RONALD BIRKS

Ronald Birks, second v iolinist of the Lindsay Q uartet and later o f the Chilingirians, d ied on 6 October a ged 75. Born in 1945, he began taking violin lessons at the age of ten. He studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music between 1966 and 1969, a period during which he studied the quartet repertoire with Alexandre Moskovsky, formerly of the Hungarian Quartet. In 1969 he joined the Northern Sinfonia Orchestra.

In 1971 Birks was invited to become second violinist of the Lindsay Quartet, and remained with them until the quartet’s disbandment in 2005. Highlights of Birks’s career with the ensemble included performances of complete Beethoven cycles in many parts of the world, recordings of two complete Beethoven cycles and all six Bartók quartets, and collaborations with Michael Tippett on the interpretation, performance and recording of his five string quartets.

In late 2009 Birks was invited to become a member of the Chilingirian Quartet, with a public debut at the group’s appearances in Venezuela in January 2010.

HAIM SHTRUM

The Israeli–American violinist and composer Haim Shtrum has died from Covid-19.

He was 81 years old. Born in Tel Aviv, Israel, Shtrum moved to the US to study with Dorothy DeLay and Louis Persinger at the Juilliard School, where he also studied with Isidore Cohen, Felix Galimir, Bernard Wagenaar and Jacob Druckman.

After graduating, Shtrum became a member of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, also playing with the St Clair Quartet and studying composition with George Wilson at the University of Michigan. He then moved to California,

where he joined the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra under Neville Marriner, and performed as a soloist in various chamber and new music concerts, including the Monday Evening Concerts at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

He played as part of the orchestra for many iconic movie soundtracks, among them The Godfather II and III, Schindler’s List, Titanic, Jaws, Jaws 2 and The Shawshank Redemption. He also performed with singers such as Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Madonna, Celine Dion, Ray Charles, Eric Clapton and Elvis Costello; and bands including the Bee Gees and Earth Wind and Fire.

Many of his compositions were performed in California, two of which – Symphony in G and Continuum – he conducted himself with the San Luis Obispo Symphony.

WINIFRED MAYES

US cellist Winifred Mayes has died aged 101. In 1957 she became the first woman to win a position in the string section of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO), beating 14 male cellists in an audition for the position.

Born in Yakima, WA, in 1919, Mayes was accepted at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she met her future husband Arthur Winograd, the founding cellist of the Juilliard Quartet.

Later she moved to Indiana, where, at the end of the 1940s, she became principal cellist of the Fort Wayne Philharmonic.

After winning the cello position in Boston she married her second husband, cellist Samuel Mayes, who eventually left the BSO to become principal cellist of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Winifred went on to share his desk after she received an offer to become the orchestra’s assistant principal cellist in 1970.

On retiring from the orchestra in her late fifties, Mayes joined Samuel in Michigan, where he taught at the university while she divided her time between performing and teaching. She moved back to Washington after his death in 1990.