Kathleen Riddick (17 July 1907 - 5 February 1973) was a British musician, one of the first women in Britain to establish herself in the male-dominated profession of conducting. To do so at a time when it was "considered impossible" for a woman to become a conductor Riddick was initially obliged to found her own ensembles to lead. They included the Surrey Philharmonic Orchestra in 1932 (of which she was the conductor for 40 years), the London Women's String Orchestra (later the Riddick Orchestra) in 1938, and The London Opera Group Orchestra which was led by Miriam Morley. But she also appeared as guest conductor of BBC orchestras and the

London Symphony Orchestra The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London. Founded in 1904, the LSO is the oldest of London's orchestras, symphony orchestras. The LSO was created by a group of players who left Henry Wood's Queen's ...

Education and early career

She was born at

Epsom Epsom is a town in the borough of Epsom and Ewell in Surrey, England, about south of central London. The town is first recorded as ''Ebesham'' in the 10th century and its name probably derives from that of a Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain ...

in Surrey into a musical family: both her parents were professional musicians and her father was the conductor of an amateur orchestra in Epsom. At the age of 10 she began studying cello at the

Guildhall School of Music The Guildhall School of Music and Drama is a music and drama school located in the City of London, England. Established in 1880, the school offers undergraduate and postgraduate training in all aspects of classical music and jazz along with dram ...

with Arnold Trowell (1887-1966), also taking composition courses. Her first professional engagements were as cellist for the Serre Trio (with Daphne Serre, piano, and Queenie Dyer, violin), which made regular BBC broadcasts in the early 1930s. In 1932 she also founded the Surrey String Players in Leatherhead, recruiting local amateurs. Later in the 1930s, Riddick gained a recommendation from Robert Jaffrey Forbes, principal of the

Royal Manchester College of Music The Royal Manchester College of Music (RMCM) was a tertiary level conservatoire in Manchester, north-west England. It was founded in 1893 by the German-born conductor Sir Charles Hallé in 1893. In 1972, the Royal Manchester College of Mu ...

, to study conducting with

Nikolai Malko Nicolai Andreyevich Malko (, ; 4 May 188323 June 1961) was a Russian-born American symphonic conductor. Biography Malko was born in Brailov, Vinnitsky Uyezd, Podolian Governorate, Russian Empire (today part of Ukraine) to a Ukrainian father a ...

in Salzburg.

Orchestras

In 1945 the Surrey String Players became the semi-professional Surrey Philharmonic Orchestra. By May 1951 it had gained enough prestige to premiere

Gordon Jacob Gordon Percival Septimus Jacob CBE (5 July 18958 June 1984) was an English composer and teacher. He was a professor at the Royal College of Music in London from 1924 until his retirement in 1966, and published four books and many articles about ...

's Horn Concerto at the

Wigmore Hall The Wigmore Hall is a concert hall at 36 Wigmore Street, in west London. It was designed by Thomas Edward Collcutt and opened in 1901 as the Bechstein Hall; it is considered to have particularly good building acoustics, acoustics. It specialis ...

with soloist

Dennis Brain Dennis Brain (17 May 19211 September 1957) was a British French horn, horn player. From a musical family – his father and grandfather were horn players – he attended the Royal Academy of Music in London. During the Second World War he served ...

and Jacob himself conducting. This was followed on 29 October 1951 with a concert at the recently opened

Royal Festival Hall The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,700-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London, England. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge, in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is a G ...

, including the premiere of Stanley Bate's ''Introduction and Allegro'', op 24, a work dedicated to Kathleen Riddick. She remained conductor of the Surrey Philharmonic for forty years until 1972, a year before her death. It is still playing today, conducted by Mark Fitz-Gerald, a student of

Norman Del Mar Norman René Del Mar Commander of the Order of the British Empire, CBE (31 July 19196 February 1994) was an English Conductor (music), conductor, horn player, and biographer. As a conductor, he specialised in the music of late romantic composers; ...

.Surrey Philharmonic Orchestra website
/ref> Concurrently, Riddick founded a second, fully professional ensemble, the London Women's String Orchestra, which performed for the first time on 25 May 1938 at the Aeolian Hall, to very positive reviews. The programme included the challenging ''Music for Strings'' by

Arthur Bliss Sir Arthur Edward Drummond Bliss (2 August 189127 March 1975) was an English composer and conductor. Bliss's musical training was cut short by the First World War, in which he served with distinction in the army. In the post-war years he qui ...

. J A Westrup commented that "Riddick proved her worth by getting good results without any fuss or display. The absolute certainty of the ensemble was a sufficient tribute to her work at rehearsal". The orchestra engaged with contemporary composers, taking on UK and world premieres of music by Stanley Bate,

Henk Badings Henk Badings (hĕngk bä'dĭngz) (17 January 190726 June 1987) was an Indonesian-Dutch composer. Early life Born in Bandung, Java, Dutch East Indies, as the son of Herman Louis Johan Badings, an officer in the Dutch East Indies army, Hendrik Her ...

, Arnold Cooke,

Paul Hindemith Paul Hindemith ( ; ; 16 November 189528 December 1963) was a German and American composer, music theorist, teacher, violist and conductor. He founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring extensively in Europe. As a composer, he became a major advo ...

Bohuslav Martinů Bohuslav Jan Martinů (; December 8, 1890 – August 28, 1959) was a Czech composer of modern classical music. He wrote 6 symphony, symphonies, 15 operas, 14 ballet scores and a large body of orchestral, chamber music, chamber, vocal and ins ...

, Alan Ridout and others. The name was changed to the Riddick String Orchestra in 1944. It performed in regular concerts and BBC radio broadcasts from then until the early 1960s, sometimes under the baton of guest conductors. Other conducting engagements included guest appearances with the

BBC Symphony Orchestra The BBC Symphony Orchestra (BBC SO) is a British orchestra based in London. Founded in 1930, it was the first permanent salaried orchestra in London, and is the only one of the city's five major symphony orchestras not to be self-governing. The ...

(Bedford, 26 November 1943), the BBC Northern and BBC Scottish orchestras, as well as the London Symphony Orchestra.

Personal life and legacy

In 1934 Kathleen Riddick married the musician George Bixley (1905-1995) and they lived at 1 Fountain Cottages, The Street,

Ashtead Ashtead is a village in the Mole Valley district of Surrey, England, approximately south of central London. Ashtead is on the single-carriageway A24 road (Great Britain), A24 between Epsom and Leatherhead. The village is on the northern sl ...

in Surrey. Their daughter, Susan Bixley, was born in 1944 and is still involved with the Surrey Philharmonic Orchestra today. Kathleen Riddick was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in

1961 Events January * January 1 – Monetary reform in the Soviet Union, 1961, Monetary reform in the Soviet Union. * January 3 ** United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and cons ...

for services to music. Along with a very few predecessors (such as Rosabel Watson,

Florence Ashton Marshall Florence Ashton Marshall (Mrs Julian Marshall) née Thomas (30 March 1843 – 5 March 1922) was an English composer, conductor and author. Life She was born on 30 March 1843 in Rome, Italy, the daughter of Vicar Canon Thomas of All Hallows Barki ...

, Gwynne Kimpton and Ethel Leginska) and her near contemporaries Avril Coleridge-Taylor, Iris Lemare and

Kathleen Merritt Eva Kathleen Merritt (1901November 1985) was a British conductor who led her own orchestra from the 1920s into the 1970s. She was best known as a pioneering woman conductor, and for her local music-making in Petersfield, Hampshire. Merritt was b ...

, Riddick was one of the pioneers who opened up the world of conducting to women musicians in Britain. She inspired

Ruth Gipps Ruth Dorothy Louisa ("Wid") Gipps (21 February 1921 – 23 February 1999) was an English composer, oboist, pianist, conductor and educator. She composed music in a wide range of genres, including five symphonies, seven concertos and ma ...

to begin her own conducting career. Like Riddick, all of these conductors also had to found their own orchestras in order to build up their reputations. (

Nadia Boulanger Juliette Nadia Boulanger (; 16 September 188722 October 1979) was a French music teacher, conductor and composer. She taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the 20th century, and also performed occasionally as a pianist and organis ...

was an exception: visiting from France in 1936, she became the first woman to conduct the

London Philharmonic Orchestra The London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) is a British orchestra based in London. One of five permanent symphony orchestras in London, the LPO was founded by the conductors Thomas Beecham, Sir Thomas Beecham and Malcolm Sargent in 1932 as a riv ...

).Brooks, Jeanice. 'Telling the Story of Nadia Boulanger's Conducting Career', in ''The Journal of Musicology'', Vol. 14, No. 1 (Winter, 1996), pp. 92-116
/ref>

Selected premiere performances

Malcolm Arnold Sir Malcolm Henry Arnold (21 October 1921 – 23 September 2006) was an English composer. His works feature music in many genres, including a cycle of nine symphonies, numerous concertos, concert works, chamber music, choral music and music f ...

. ''Symphony for Strings'' op.13 (first performance 1947) *

. ''Largo and Allegro'' (first performance of string orchestra version, 1940) * Stanley Bate. ''Introduction and Allegro'' (first performance 1951). Concerto for piano and strings, op.24 (first performance 1939) * Geoffrey Bush. ''Divertimento'' (first performance, 1947). ''Matthew Locke Suite'' (first performance, 1957) *

Hubert Clifford __NOTOC__ Hubert John Clifford (31 May 1904 – 4 September 1959) was an Australian-born British composer, conductor and musical director for films. Education and early career A native of Bairnsdale in rural Victoria, he studied chemistry befor ...

. ''Serenade'' (first performance, 1947) * Arnold Cooke. ''Passacaglia, Scherzo and Finale'' (premiere of string orchestra version, 1940) *

. ''Theme and Four Variations for piano and strings'' (first UK performance, 1947) *

. Horn Concerto (first performance, 1951). ''Symphony for Strings'', op.13 (first broadcast, 1945) *

John Lanchbery John Arthur Lanchbery OBE (15 May 1923 – 27 February 2003) was an English-Australian composer and conductor, famous for his ballet arrangements. He served as the Principal Conductor of the Royal Ballet from 1959 to 1972, Principal Conductor o ...

. ''Sinfonietta for strings'' (first performance, 1947) *

. ''Romanian Partita'' (premiere of string orchestra version, 1940) * Alan Ridout. Concerto for harpsichord and double string orchestra (first performance, 1959) *

Cyril Scott Cyril Meir Scott (27 September 1879 – 31 December 1970) was an English composer, writer, poet, and occultist. He created around four hundred musical compositions including piano, violin, cello concertos, symphonies, and operas. He also wrot ...

. ''Irish Serenade'' (first performance, 1951)

Education and early career

Orchestras

Personal life and legacy

Selected premiere performances

References

Further reading