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Norman Kay 1929–2001

Norman Kay is probably best known to MT readers for his slender volume on Shostakovich in the Oxford Studies of Composers series, but he was also a highly versatile musician who was as comfortable as music director to Harry Secombe’s Highway as in serious composition. He studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music with Richard Hall and at the Royal College of Music with Gordon Jacob. A fluent sight-reader, he worked as a repetiteur at Covent Garden and Glyndebourne, where he fell under the spell of Fritz Busch and Carl Ebert, and began a fruitful professional relationship with Sir Geraint Evans, with whom he worked on many of the Welsh baritone’s greatest roles. As a prolific composer he produced much incidental music for TV and radio, as well as several TV operas, including The rose affair, a reworking of Beauty and the Beast, and A Christmas carol, both with Evans, the latter work for Harlech Television, where he was Head of Music. He also served as a music critic on the Daily Telegraph.

Norman Kay: born Bolton, 5 January 1929; died 12 May 2001.