Sir Ian Stoutzker CBE, 1929-2024
Honorary Member Ian Stoutzker was a champion of the arts and was dedicated to the betterment of musicians’ lives
Ian Stoutzker arrived for his first violin lesson at the house of Albert Sammons – the pre-eminent English violin soloist – when he was in his early teens. When, at the conclusion of the lesson, Ian presented the £10 note his mother had given him to pay, Sammons demurred. Recognising a talented player from a modest background, he decided to offer his advice pro bono. It was an act of altruism that was to demonstrate to Ian the power of philanthropic giving, an ethos he adopted until the very end of his life some eighty years later.
Ian was born in 1929 in London, the fourth and youngest child of a musical family. His father, Rev Aaron Stoutzker, was cantor and first reader of the Central London Synagogue. His mother, Dora neé Cohen, a piano teacher from the mining town of Tredegar in South Wales. The family were to return to his mother’s home town during the war when its house near Broadcasting House was bombed.
It was Ian’s mother who inspired in her son two life-long passions, those of music and the world of nature. They were to be experienced daily in the environs of Tredegar, music at home, where his mother played the piano, and in the town, where the brass band and male voice choir enthusiastically performed to a very high standard whilst the verdant valleys of the Monmouthshire countryside provided a revelatory view of the natural world never imagined by a child raised in central London.
At the end of the war the family moved back to England, this time to Hertfordshire where Ian began his secondary education as a day boy at Berkhamsted School. After leaving school he entered the Royal College of Music, where he continued to study with Sammons on the performers course.
The life of a professional musician was the obvious career path, but instead he chose to take a post-graduate place at the London School of Economics. On graduation he held several posts, firstly as a junior for the merchant bankers, Samuel Montagu & Co. whilst later, directorships of Keyser Ullman and Dawney Day were to come his way. His active business life never blunted his enthusiasm for music in general and the violin in particular. He owned the Vieuxtemps violin made in Cremona in 1741 by Guarneri del Gesù for over forty years.
The pursuit of musical excellence was a leit motiv of Ian’s benevolence, resulting early on in a generous donation for a prize for an outstanding solo performance for the Royal College of Music, his alma mater. The first recipient of the prize was Benedict Cruft, a violinist who in later life was to become Vice-chairman of the Royal Society of Musicians. This led to an invitation to join the College Council in 1968. He gave thirty one years of dedicated service and financial generosity until his retirement in 1999.
Following the death of conductor Otto Klemperer in 1973, the New Philharmonia Orchestra needed financial support as well as musical leadership, the latter being jointly provided by the young Riccardo Muti, appointed as Music Director, and Lorin Maazel who remained in his position as Principal Guest Conductor.
The financial support, however, came from Ian who was appointed Chairman of the Orchestra’s Council of Management. This was the first time that a non-player had been appointed as chairman of a self-governing London orchestra. As a serious musician, with wide ranging contacts – he was close friends of Menuhin, Mehta, Milstein, Perlman, Zuckerman, Barenboim and du Pre – allowed him to offer frank opinions on artistic matters.
Under Ian’s chairmanship, Gavin Henderson’s appointment as General Manager was to transform the perception of the Orchestra in the concert going public. The Orchestra’s musical standards were ameliorated by the playing of some outstanding young instrumentalists who joined; leader, Carl Pini, principal viola, Csaba Erdélyi – the only viola player ever to win the Carl Flesch Competition – Gordon Hunt, oboe, Pat Lyndon, flute, Michael Thompson, horn and John Wallace, trumpet.
Ian was passionate about restoring the original name of ‘Philharmonia Orchestra’ from the ‘New Philharmonia Orchestra’ which was the players’ expedient choice following the unilateral decision to disband by the Orchestra’s founder, Walter Legge. The name ‘Philharmonia’ and its exclusive use had been sold by Legge to the Chinese American conductor, Ling Tung. The offer of some UK concerts and recording work to Tung, spread out over time, achieved the return of the name to the Orchestra. The players could finally appear as Philharmonia Orchestra again in 1977.
After the initial three year appointment as Chairman, Ian held the title of President of the Orchestra, from 1976-79, an honour only ever previously held by Klemperer.
In 1977 Yehudi Menuhin, a close friend, pleaded with Ian to help him realise a dream. Menuhin’s vision was to be called Live Music Now. Menuhin’s experiences of playing the violin to refugees, prisoners of war, and others left sick, traumatised or wounded by the war, led him to believe that music could aid the healing process. As Menuhin put it, “Music is the language which penetrates most deeply into the human spirit”
The joint aims of Live Music Now was to reach out to those less fortunate in society in order they enjoy the benefits of live music and, at the same time, help young musicians at the start of their careers. Today, and for over forty five years, Live Music Now has worked alongside those with little or no access to live music, in care homes, schools, hospitals, hospices and community settings across the UK.
Ian was to chair every single meeting of the Board of Governors, held three times a year – including meetings in Edinburgh, York, Cardiff and Manchester – for nearly forty years. On a regular basis he would provide substantial funds when new projects were proposed or when the charity’s bank balance became precariously low.
Early on recognising that sponsorship was key to Live Music Now flourishing, Ian organised a fund raising dinner with a gala concert at the former home of the Duke of Wellington, Apsley House, ‘No. 1 London’. HRH the Prince Charles and HRH Diana, Princess of Wales were guests of honour. This event raise £30,000. The future King was to become pivotal in hosting many fund raising musical events at royal residencies for the benefit of Live Music Now.
The numerous musicians who have worked with Live Music Now have, over the years, received support and training which has given them new skills and employment opportunities at the start of their careers. The vast majority of them have remained active and highly successful members of the music profession. These include the singer and RCM professor Sally Burgess, Andrew Marriner, principal clarinetist with the London Symphony Orchestra and professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and George Caird, the oboist and former Principal of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama and currently Chairman of the Royal Society of Musicians.
On 20 April 1996 Sir Yehudi Menuhin chose to celebrate his 80th birthday by conducting what was to be a sold out gala concert at the Royal Albert Hall. In the programme’s introduction a few people were singled out for special mention:-
My great friend Ian Stoutzker, whose helping hand is indefatigable and ever-present; he and I belong to a common heritage, for he too comes from rabbinical lineage, he shares my love for the violin, and his generous involvement with Live Music Now, of which he is Chairman and with my Foundation is incalculable.
In 1992 Ian was invited to become Chairman of the the Advisory Council of London Symphony Orchestra. He served for fifteen years, considerably extending the council and its activities. He retired in 2007 and was awarded the orchestra’s highest honour, Honorary Membership of the London Symphony Orchestra.
In 2012 Ian, along with his wife, Mercedes was awarded the Prince of Wales Medal for Arts Philanthropy. Seven years later, in 2019, he appeared in the late Queen’s Birthday Honours, awarded a Knighthood for services to Music and to Philanthropy.
In 2014, in collaboration with Sir John Tusa, Ian became Co-chairman of the European Union Youth Orchestra at a period of major transition serving in this position until 2020.
In later years, he loved returning to Wales which he referred to as “home”. Acknowledging the musical legacy he inherited from his mother and his happy childhood days in Tredegar, in 2017 he made a significant gift to the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama for the building of a new 400 seat concert hall, in his mother’s honour, the Dora Stoutzker Hall. This wonderful commemoration included an endowment to establish the annual Stoutzker Prize for the best singer or instrumentalist.
The outstanding Tredegar Town Band acknowledged that his generosity was manifold – one that came from a deep emotional tie to the town, but also the fact that Ian and the Tredegar Town Band shared a musical outlook. It was the pursuit of “joyful excellence” in performance.
His generosity enabled the Band to perform at the 2022 Proms alongside the National Orchestra of Wales, as well as undertaking a major award winning CD recording, ‘Vaughan Williams on Brass’.
His pride in “his band” as he playfully referred to it, was reciprocal. He accompanied the band when they performed in the heart of the Houses of Parliament – and in the Speakers House itself, on the occasion of 70th anniversary celebrations of the NHS. There they played a work dedicated to the NHS Founder, Aneurin Bevan, who as a young man lived just a few doors away from his mother in Tredegar and came to her home regularly – usually to enjoy her cooking, or so it was said.
In 2008 Sir Ian and Lady Stoutzker moved to Salzburg where Sir Ian could indulge his love of the countryside with daily walks along the River Salzach and his enduring passion for live music at the highest level of performance at the annual Salzburg Festival. He also gave something to his new home, an annual prize for outstanding performance at the Salzburg Mozarteum University.
As well as the Royal College of Music, two further London institutions were recipients of Ian Stoutzker’s generosity. With his wife Mercedes, nine important works of British modern art were given to the Tate Gallery, which included paintings by Lucien Freud, David Hockney, Peter Doig and Hurvin Anderson.
A major donation made by Sir Ian to the Royal Academy of Music helped acquire the famous ‘Viotti’ Stradivari violin for the Academy’s Instrument Collection. In the citation for its award of Honorary Fellowship of the RAM 2008, it stated, “With the possible exception of George Frederic Handel, no individual has done more to bring music to children and the disadvantaged in the history of this country than Ian Stoutzker”
Sir Ian Isaac Stoutzker was born in London on January 21 1929, and died in London April 6 2024.
He is survived by his wife of 66 years, Mercedes, their daughter Rica, and son, Robert.
Peter Bassano, April 2024