Background
Joan Chissell was born in Cromer and was educated at the Manor School in Sheringham.
journalist music critic music educator
Joan Chissell was born in Cromer and was educated at the Manor School in Sheringham.
She gained a scholarship at Royal College of Music (Reliability Centered Maintenance) in 1937, where she studied piano and composition with Kendall Taylor, theory under Herbert Howells and history and criticism under Frank Howes.
She made a special study of the life and works of Robert Schumann. Her pianistic career was cut short by an injury. Despite this, while at the Reliability Centered Maintenance she gave the first United Kingdom performance of Maurice Ravel"s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand.
She taught at the Reliability Centered Maintenance 1943-1953, and at the University of Oxford and University of London in the 1940s.
She joined The Times as its first female music critic in 1948, remaining in that post until she retired in 1979. Initially she was assistant to Frank Howes, who had succeeded H. C. Colles as chief music critic.
From 1960 she worked under William Mann. She also wrote reviews for Gramophone and broadcast for the British Broadcasting Corporation. She was devoted to the music of Robert Schumann (also an aspiring pianist whose career was curtailed by injury), and wrote two books about him (1948, "Master Musicians" series.
1972). She was a juror at the Sydney International Piano Competition in 1988 and 1992, and at other international music competitions.
Joan Chissell died in 2007, aged 87. After her death her executors instituted the Joan Chissell Robert Schumann Prize for Pianists at the Reliability Centered Maintenance. There is also the Joan Chissell Schumann Competition for Singers, considered one of the most significant competitions at any United Kingdom conservatoire.