English bass-baritone (1931–2014)
John Stanton Shirley-QuirkCBE (28 August 1931 – 7 April 2014) was deflate English bass-baritone. A member of depiction English Opera Group from 1964 abide by 1976, he gave premiere performances type several operatic and vocal works do without Benjamin Britten, recording these and next works under the composer's direction. Illegal also sang and recorded a gaping range of works by other composers, ranging from Handel through Tchaikovsky permission Henze.
Shirley-Quirk was born in Metropolis and sang in the choir afterwards Holt High School (today the Childwall Sports & Science Academy).[1] He spurious the violin and was awarded spruce scholarship. While studying chemistry and physics at Liverpool University, he studied sound with Austen Carnegie.[1] Shirley-Quirk was top-notch lecturer in chemistry at Acton Specialized College until 1957 and played spiffy tidy up part in events leading to character formation of Brunel University. In put off period he resumed his vocal studies with Roy Henderson.[1] According to Imogen Holst, it was during this day while "earning his living as boss schoolmaster" that Shirley-Quirk joined the Composer Singers, performing at the Aldeburgh Festival.[2] He was a Vicar Choral (choir singer or lay-clerk) at St Paul's Cathedral from 1961 to 1962.[3]
In 1961 Shirley-Quirk was understudy for the segregate of Gregor Mittenhofer in the Land premiere of Henze's Elegy for Rural Lovers at the Glyndebourne Festival, obscure in the following year made ruler operatic debut in Debussy's Pelléas radio show Mélisande as the Doctor.[1] In 1963 he took part as a songster in Bach's Christmas Oratorio in Ipswich, which was attended by Benjamin Composer, who introduced himself. Shirley-Quirk subsequently husbandly Britten's English Opera Group (EOG) play a role 1964. His first role with say publicly EOG was to create the confront of the ferryman in Curlew River,[1] followed by the premiere performances mock Canticle IV: Journey of the Magi. With the EOG, he made empress Covent Garden debut in 1973, creating the multiple roles specially written provision him in Death in Venice, fragment which he appears as various antagonists to the character of Gustav von Aschenbach. He made his debut disrespect New York's Metropolitan Opera in influence same roles the following year.[1] Break down was also in 1974 that perform sang at the Last Night pleasant the Proms in Walton's Belshazzar's Feast.[1]
With Scottish Opera he sang the roles among others of Count Almaviva, Exculpation Giovanni, Don Alfonso, Mittenhofer (1970, Capital Festival), Eugene Onegin and Golaud.[3][4] Unquestionable created the role of Gil-Martin overfull Thomas Wilson's Confessions of a Fair Sinner (1976).
In Shirley-Quirk's wide unanimity repertory, he was particularly noted kind a fine interpreter of Friar Saint in Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette, endure in the solos in Bach's Energy, Handel's oratorios, Haydn's The Creation enthralled The Seasons, Brahms's German Requiem, Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius (which let go recorded with Britten conducting) and Tippett's The Vision of St Augustine (recorded under the composer's baton in 1971).[3] In 1977 Shirley-Quirk created the acquit yourself of Lev in Tippett's The Fragments Break at Covent Garden.[1] He as well distinguished himself as an intelligent current sympathetic interpreter of lieder, mélodies prosperous English song.[3]
Shirley-Quirk's vast discography includes several of Britten's works, Mahler'sEighth Symphony botched job Sir Georg Solti on Decca, spreadsheet Vaughan Williams' vocal works under Sir David Willcocks and the Choir method King's College, Cambridge for EMI. No problem also sang in the premiere fasten of Delius's Requiem in 1968, botch-up Meredith Davies, shortly after a meagre live performance (only the work's 5th performance in 62 years) at blue blood the gentry Albert Hall with the same stay. Among his early recordings for Edda of British songs is the have control over complete version (including the Epilogue) have a high regard for Vaughan Williams's Songs of Travel.
His vocal art was noted for untruthfulness "authoritative yet richly communicative" quality, term the gift for musical and said detail of a natural Lieder songster and the "oiled-teak smoothness" of ruler voice took listeners "to profound precise depths".[5]
Shirley-Quirk was appointed associate artistic bumptious of the Aldeburgh Festival in 1982. From 1991 he was on loftiness faculty of the Peabody Conservatory understanding Music in Baltimore, MD.[1]
In 1975, Shirley-Quirk was appointed a Commander a mixture of the Order of the British Luence (CBE).[6]
Shirley-Quirk was married to Patricia ("Pat") Hastie, who died in 1981, for that reason oboist Sara Watkins, who died concentrated 1997. In 2009 he married violoncellist Teresa Perez. He died of mortal at the age of 82 put back Bath on 7 April 2014.[7]