Beecham’s son has died, aged 91
RIPWe have been informed of the death of Paul Strang, a non-musician who played a key backstage role in several music organisations.
Paul was the child of the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham and the English soprano Dora Labette, with whom he had a 13-year affair.
A lawyer by vocation, Paul Strang joined the board of Trinity College of Music back in 1974 and became chair in 1992. He worked with three successive principals to merge Trinity with Laban Dance Centre and move the new hybrid out of central London, to Greenwich.
He also supported the Kathleen Ferrier Prize and the Museum of Music History.
His wife Jeanne predeceased him last August. They lived in a musical corner of St John’s Wood, north London, with Maggie Teyte, Charler Mackerras, Gerald Moore and Philip and Ursula Jones among their neighbours.
From his memories of the locality:
My father, Sir Thomas Beecham, also lived in the area on and off, but my mother and he had parted and he had remarried. I never went to either of his two homes in the Wood, although he once came to Emmie (Tillett)’s for a rather uncomfortable dinner, at which I was so awestruck that I probably didn’t utter a word…
How grateful we are to those who generously give their time to support the cause of music. Thank you Paul Strang . RIP.
As Chairman of various musical institutions he had an active and profoundly positive influence on British music-making: the ‘creation’ of Henry Wood Hall, the move of Trinity Laban to Greenwich and the renaissance of the Museum of Music History. All this on top of being a highly successful solicitor, and a best-selling author on the wines of the South of France (rivalling his wife’s wonderful books on that region’s gastronomy). A lovely man too, he and Jeanne will be truly missed.
Mention of “Emmie” brings back memories of those days when Ibbs & Tillett, managed by the strong-willed Emmie for many years after the death of her husband, virtually ruled the music world in Britain in the 1950s and part of the ’60s. But the ‘Duchess of Wigmore Street’ esconced in her wood panneled offices was never prepared to change her ways which became increasingly old fashioned as new recruits first joined her management and then left to work for other managements or form their own more boutique agencies. Christopher Hunt, Jasper Parrott and Terry Harrison, Martin Campbell-White and Robert Rattray and others could no doubt have ensured the continuation of the company. But Emmie supported by the faithful Beryl Ball was totally stuck in her ways. Ibbs finally went under in 1990 after a financial scandal,