Mary Chandler

Mary Chandler was born in Kent on May 16th 1911. She studied music privately and at the Blackheath Conservatoire of Music. Her teachers included Harry Farjeon (composition), Margaret Eliot and Leon Goossens (oboe) and Harold Craxton (piano). In the early 1930s she studied English at Oxford University and Education at London University. She then taught English in London schools until 1944. From 1944-58 she was principal oboist with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with whom she also appeared as oboe and piano soloist and as composer. A short period of freelance playing, mainly with her own group, the Mercian Trio (flute, oboe and piano), was followed by her appointment as Area Director of the Kent Music School in 1960. She retired from Kent in 1971 to concentrate on composition, Associated Board examining and organising the Cotswold Baroque Trio (soprano, violin and spinet). Her works have been performed and broadcast by artists such as Leon Goosens, Dinah Demuth, Ian Partridge and Philip Jones. They include concertos, suites, chamber music, piano works and both solo and choral vocal music. Her music has been published by Novello and Phylloscopus.

Biography taken from Taylor and Francis Online.
Photo from family's private collection.