Kingston Composer Remembered

Lucy McNulty

The composer, choirmaster and academic, Dr. John Kelsall died suddenly from stomach cancer, aged 39, on November 4th 1986. This year his musical scores were performed at a commemorative event for the first time since his death 20 years ago.
Born in Nottingham in 1947, he was educated at Aberdeen and Glasgow Universities and received his PhD in 1975. In 1977 he joined the staff at the music centre at Kingston Polytechnic (now University) where he remained until his death. His close friend and colleague, John Bate, remembers him as “a very fine musician, an inspiring conductor, a good teacher and a very good colleague with a witty, warm personality.”
In October 1986, just two years after marrying his second wife, Carolyn, Dr. Kelsall was diagnosed with a particularly aggressive form of stomach cancer. Within a month the cancer had killed him. Mr Bate recalls: “When he died a light went out in the music department that never came back. Students were crying for weeks afterwards. I don’t think we ever got over losing him.”
Perhaps his greatest achievement at the music school was founding the Kingston Polytechnic Chamber Choir in the late 70s, which still functions as a choir today. Throughout his time at the school Kelsall composed countless manuscripts for this choir.
It was discovering these manuscripts abandoned in a storeroom that inspired Kingston graduate and musical director Benjamin Costello to organise an evening in his memory to mark the 20th anniversary of his death. Mr Costello said: “It was such good music, and had been completely forgotten. I wanted to see it performed so I decided to do something about it”.
The John Kelsall Retrospective took place this Saturday at Kelsall’s local church, St Andrew’s in Surbiton. A choir almost entirely made up of singers from the original Chamber Choir came from all over the UK and Europe to perform works by Kelsall himself.
For more information on John Kelsall visit www.johnkelsall.com