Ron Tendler Collection [PSC/4/1] |
|
| Date | 1937 – 2004 |
| Level of Description | Series |
| Extent and medium of the unit of description | 1 archival box |
| Archival history | The collection was put together by Aubrey Bowman, a founding member of the WMA. |
| Immediate source of acquisition | Ron Tendler |
| Administrative History | Ron Tendler graduated from Royal Academy of Music and has been a freelance violinist for forty years. He has played with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Guildford Philharmonic amongst many others. As a composer, he studied under Alan Bush and Aubrey Bowman thus being introduced to the Worker’s Music Association in the 1960s.
He has extensive knowledge of the standard orchestral repertoire, participated in many operatic performances and given solo recitals in Guildford and Tunbridge Wells, playing Mozart, Beethoven, Elgar Sonatas and various Kreisler pieces. Ron was leader of a quartet who played regularly for weddings, baptisms and other social functions. He has also composed many pieces for the quartet to perform, in order to raise musical awareness in schools throughout Staffordshire, Birmingham, South West London and Surrey. Ron was a representative on Sir Simon Rattle’s Music Education Committee with the National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education (NACCCE) and has contributed several articles to various publications on music education including the journal of the Music Education Council and in the Musician. Ron’s wife died in 2003 and he felt compelled to contact Aubrey Bowman to renew his composing abilities. Indebted to Bowman for getting him back to composing Ron promised him that he would catalogue his papers. After nearly eight years of working on the project Ron deposited Bowman’s papers at the Bishopsgate Institute in London and his songs of protest here. |
| Scope and content | 54 song sheets and song books mainly from the Workers’ Music Association. Ron Tendler also deposited a number of song sheets already in the collection. |
| Accruals | Further accruals are expected. |
| System of arrangement | The arrangement of this material reflects the original order in which it was received. |
| Related units of description | Workers’ Music Association (PSC/1/2) and the Workers’ Music Association Archive (PSC/3). |
