Thomas Armstrong - former principal of the RAM

[Dave2002]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Armstrong_(conductor)

Another for the list!

[Pabmusic]

Snap! see post 2: http://www.for3.org/forums/showthrea...mstrongophilia

[Dave2002]

OK!

Very nearly missed that due to only being a link. I'm not sure if I ever met him, though I may have been to a concert he was present at or conducted at. A friend of mine went to the RAM when he was principal, and seemed to think highly of him.

Is that CD worth checking?

[Pabmusic]

...Is that CD worth checking?

Oh yes. If you're happy with 'minor British pastoral academics' like Dyson, Hadley and Lloyd Webber (not ALW, but his father), Armstrong will appeal. I have the CD, but I don't play it much. However, when I do (as I have again today, because of these posts) I enjoy it, because I'm happy with that style. It's not terribly memorable, though - I much prefer Gerald Finzi.

I never met Thomas Armstrong but I did meet his son (or rather I attended a few meetings chaired by Sir Robert), and I knew one of Gerald Finzi's granddaughters quite well.

[Ariosto]

You lot must have nothing better to do with all this research into Armstrongs!!

By the way, it's RAM for R Academy of Musak NOT RACM.

Yes I knew Thomas and Richard Armstrong (not related). The first was Principal at the *RAM* when I was there. He was a pretty poor conductor to put it mildly.

I also knew and worked with Richard A for over 10 years - some of it freelance - some of the time in his band. He was the better of the two conductors.

My wife also flatted with Craig A along with a singer for a few months when they were all students. She was tempted to meet him again recently after a concert but decided against. (He used to compose with a pianist and a singer belting away, so that why certain things turned out the way they did ...)

I never had any Armstrong Hi fi - it was a bit before my time and expensive, but I knew people who did own gear.

We must be scraping the barrell to be talking of such mundane things ...

[MrGongGong]

My wife also flatted with Craig A

I've never heard it called that before

[Dave2002]

Ariosto

Blast! (Euphemism for something else). I corrected RAM in my post, but the thread title remains. Sorry, maybe ff can remove the offending "C". Thanks for pointing it out.

Barrel has only one 'l', I think. Pistols at dawn!

[Ariosto]

I'm re-designing not only grammar, but new words, and spelling too. Oxford knows nuffink.

[Dave2002]

I've never heard it called that before

I wonder which key she used?

[MrGongGong]

I wonder which key she used?

A flat by all accounts
but not sure whether it was 440 or 442 or something more esoteric ?

[Ariosto]

It varies with the season and general temperature. Sometimes it even sinks or fluctuates to the HIP region, but a prolonged dose of ear wax remover often improves the situation.

[Hornspieler]

You lot must have nothing better to do with all this research into Armstrongs!!
Yes I knew Thomas and Richard Armstrong (not related). The first was Principal at the *RAM* when I was there. He was a pretty poor conductor to put it mildly.
We must be scraping the barrell to be talking of such mundane things ...

Thomas Armstrong was Principal of the Royal Academy of Music when I played for my scholarship in the Spring of 1949; but by the time I entered the Academy as a 16 year old student in September of that year, he had already retired and Dr Reginald Thatcher had assumed the role of Principal.

So that would seem to suggest that Ariosto is a few years older than I am.

Gosh!

HS

[Dave2002]

HS

Interesting. I should revise my first post then (but I won't), as I doubt that my friend could have been there when he was principal, as it was before our time. Perhaps he did return on occasion, as I can't think how otherwise I would have known or remembered about him.

[VodkaDilc]

I remember him as an adjudicator when I used to conduct choirs - possibly in the 1980s. He seemed extremely old and very eminent. (All the old ladies on the organising committee would flutter around him.) I also recall that he criticised my choir for getting faster as the tensions rose in Stanford's Bluebird - which seemed to be an old-school, polite way of criticising me! (He was probably right to do so.)

I also remember reading his weekly column in the Oxford Mail about anything musical which took his fancy - round about the 1970s, I would guess.

[Hornspieler]

HS

Interesting. I should revise my first post then (but I won't), as I doubt that my friend could have been there when he was principal, as it was before our time. Perhaps he did return on occasion, as I can't think how otherwise I would have known or remembered about him.

No Dave. Don't revise anything.

I have checked your link and Thomas Armstrong was after Reginald Thatcher.

The memory plays odd tricks after more than 60 years.

It was, of course, Stanley Marchant who preceded Reginald Thatcher.

My profound apologies to yourself and to young Ariosto.

HS