Percy Scholes

Who was Percy Scholes?

Percy Alfred Scholes M.A., Hon.D.Mus., F.S.A., F.R.Hist.S., A.R.C.M., F.T.S.C. was an English musician, journalist and prolific writer, whose best-known achievement was his compilation of the first edition of The Oxford Companion to Music. His 1948 biography The Great Dr Burney was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.

He was born in Leeds in 1877 and was educated privately, owing to his poor health as a child. He became an organist, schoolteacher, music journalist, lecturer, an Inspector of Music in Schools to London University and the Organist and Music Master of Kent College, Canterbury, All Saints, Vevey, Switzaland as well as Kingswood College, Grahamstown, South Africa. He was Registrar at the City of Leeds School of Music. At various times he was music critic for the Evening Standard, The Observer and the Radio Times. He was made an Officer of the Star of Rumania in 1930. He was founder and general secretary of the Anglo-American Conference on Musical Education, Lausanne; the president of the Union of Directors of Music in Secondary Schools; founder and editor The Music Student; and during the First World War he directed the Music section of the Y. M. C. A. for the troops at home and abroad. He ended his days in Cornaux, Chamby sur Montreux in Switzerland.