John Abbott

58) Joseph Engleman, light music composer from Birmingham and his son Harry Engleman. Joseph's works span from the Potted Overtures medley to a (lost) Symphony in E. Harry was greatly influenced by Billy Mayerl. His best known piece is Finger Prints (8/24) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_... #jawiki

Hilda Gaunt, rehearsal pianist with The Royal Ballet for over 40 years, was (said Frederick Ashton) "a tremendous drinker. She'd always be on tap." She died on 10 October 1975. That's her in the hat in 1939. I pieced together this short Wikipedia entry for her. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilda_G...

57) List of émigré musicians who escaped from Germany and Austria before the war. I created this list (of over 70), with bibliography, as an index so that I could continue to fill out the individual entries. What an amazing contribution they made. (2/20) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of... #jawili

56) There wouldn't have been any modern performances of Lilian Elkington's evocative orchestral tone poem Out of the Mist (1921) if the score and parts hadn't been rescued from a Worthing 2nd hand book shop in the 1970s (3/23) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sf... #jawiki www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ski...

Music executive John Boyden smiling while embracing his fiancée,... Music executive John Boyden smiling while embracing his fiancée, singer Isabella Gonzalez, April 22nd 1957.

Great photo of record exec John Boyden and singer Belle Gonzalez in 1957, probably in Richmond, just before they married. They met in Singapore. Sadly the marriage was dissolved in the mid-1960s. Belle now has a Wikipedia page www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_G...

I do too - and Updike liked it as well. He wrote (in Salon) "It has done me a favor, that book, because it's a book like few others. It's an act of homage, isn't it? He's a good writer, and he brings to that book all of his curious precision, that strange Bakeresque precision."

"Book reviews, not books [are] the principal engines of change in the history of thought". Nicholson Baker, U & I (1991), as he admits to having only the vaguest idea of Harold Bloom's argument in ''The Anxiety of Influence" (and of course he is anxious about it!).

55) Christopher Edmunds, a successor of Bantock at the Birmingham School of Music, produced two significant works foreshadowing the war: the B minor Piano Sonata and the Symphony No 2. The Sonata was premiered in May 1938 (5/23) www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0_J... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christo... #jawki

YouTube video by John Mayer - Topic Acka Raga

Innocently listening to the 1967 Joe Harriott and John Mayer album Indo-Jazz Fusions this afternoon, and on comes the theme tune to Ask The Family (aka Acka Rag). Re-entering my brain after nearly 50 years as if it's never been away! www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4ZL...

54) I knew the late Giles Easterbrook and vividly remember first meeting him at his Novello office, just off of Golden Square in Soho, smoking his trusty pipe. He helped me so much getting the score of Lambert's Tiresias back into circulation (12/24) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giles_E... #jawiki

53) John Arthur St. Oswald Dykes was the son of John Bacchus Dykes, the archetypal Victorian hymn composer. St Oswald Dykes was a pupil of Clara Schumann and taught piano at the Royal College of Music for over 50 years, from 1889 until 1941 (5/25) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ar... #jawiki

52) Frederick Durrant and his wife moved to Harrow (71 Whitmore Road) in the 1920s, where they stayed for 50 years while he taught harmony and composition at the Royal Academy. His Clarinet Quintet in E flat won the Clements Memorial Prize in 1938 (10/23) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederi... #jawiki

51) Rudolph Dolmetsch was just as interested in early music and instruments as his father Arnold and younger brother Carl - but he was also a composer of neo-baroque tendencies (Clarinet & Harp Concerto). He died during WW2 when his ship was torpedoed (10/24) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolph... #jawiki

I'm late with this even though I knew it was coming: a new biography of Bill Haley by Chris Gardner and David Lee Joyner. I worked with Chris for several years at PRS, he knows about all sorts of music. His father was composer John Gardner and he played piano with the Stargazers in the 80s. Ordered

50) As part of my campaign to add the musical perspective to Wikipedia entries that otherwise ignore it, I contributed the "Musical settings" section to the piece on Deirdre of the Sorrows. Someone else has since expanded it further, which is great (2/20) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deirdre... #jawiki

Two eclectic and lively books that fill out some significant gaps in the history of light music. Kenneth Young's "Music's Great Days In The Spas And Watering-Places", focusing on the UK, came out in 1968. Ian Bradley's broader (ie Europe and North America) "Water Music" is from 2010.

49) An entry on one of my favourite reference books, A Dictionary of Musical Themes of 1949 (and its rival, The Directory of Tunes and Musical Themes, 1975). Fascinating to delve into the background of the authors. Not many look it up, but I love it (5/20) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Dicti... #jawiki

Make that seven times - another one just now (and I've probably missed many others)

48) A recording by the Tippett Quartet, of Summer's Eve at Cookham Lock, op. 50, led me research John David Davis. He taught at the Birmingham and Midland Institute, pre-Granville Bantock. His epic 1921 Cello Concerto was quickly eclipsed by Elgar's (11/21) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Da... #jawiki

Eiluned Davies - Wikipedia

47) Pianist Eiluned Davies recorded the piano music of Bernard van Dieren in the 1980s when almost none of his music could be heard. She was also a composer (Sociable Pieces for piano six hands) and a champion of 'Y Pump Cymreig' (The Welsh Five) (9/22) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiluned... #jawiki

YouTube video by ransome51 BLACKFRIARS - EDRICH CUNDELL

46) Edric Cundell taught at Trinity and then at Guildhall for most of his career. His brass band work Blackfriars was recorded in 1955. He conducted the premier of Malcom Arnold's Toy Symphony at the Savoy Hotel in 1957 (1/21) www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zU8... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edric_C... #jawiki

45) The Cult of Kata. Again, I added just a section to an existing entry, for Harold Peake, the archaeologist, anthropologist, museum curator and scholar. The Cult was a joke religion involving several musicians, including Francis and Geoffrey Toye (3/25) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_... #jawiki

The Crucifixion (Stainer) - Wikipedia

44) To balance out an otherwise wholly positive piece, I added the "critical opinion" section to the entry on Stainer's Crucifixion - sorry! (7/22) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cru... #jawiki

My two most local composers are Balfour Gardiner, a mile from me - wrote ''A Berkshire Idyll'' in his garden and met with Delius and many others there - and Robert Still (three miles away), who lived very close to the local pub and wrote four (rather tough) symphonies and four string quartets.

Hi, thank you - and you are right, Parry didn't ever teach at the Academy. I've looked back at the sources and can't immediately find how I made the connection between her and Parry. Have asked her granddaughter Anne Wightman if she knows anything more. Thanks for spotting, I will update as needed

43) Launcelot Cranmer-Byng, sinologist associated with the Warwick Circle, whose Chinese to English translations were set to music by Granville Bantock, Rebecca Clarke, Bernard van Dieren, Harry Farjeon, Charles Tomlinson Griffes and Peter Warlock (3/24) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launcel... #jawiki

42) Pianist Ambrose Coviello was a pupil of the indefatigable Oscar Beringer (see above). At the Royal Academy he was a colleague of Tobias Matthay. But he was very critical of Matthay's impenetrable prose style which he tried to clarify in a 1948 book (5/25) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrose... #jawiki

41) Walter Gaze Cooper, pianist, composer and teacher who founded the Nottingham Symphony Orchestra. He composed nine symphonies - the 7th popular in Poland - four piano concertos, and a bassoon concerto, completed in 1977 when he was 83 years old. (6/25) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_... #jawiki

40) Martin Cooper, best known as author of the book French Music from the Death of Berlioz to the Death of Fauré (1951), was pupil of Egon Wellesz and music critic at the Telegraph for 26 years (1950-1976) (5/21) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_... #jawiki

39) Composers in literature is a list of novels including fictional representations of real (named) composers and musicians, and fictional characters under other names that resemble a specific musician. I'm sure there are many more, feel free to add. (1/22) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of... #jawiki