| Biography | Robert Anderson was known as a man of 'immense intellectual ability, capable of storing in his mind the musical scores of the masters as well as interpreting the texts of Ancient Egypt and the Classical world.'
He studied at Harrow School and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he read Classics and Egyptology, Robert enjoyed twin careers in the field of Egyptology and music. After military service in Egypt, he spent six years at Cambridge before leaving to take up an appointment at Gordonstoun School in Scotland, where he became Director of Music and met the influential educationist, the schools founder, Kurt Hahn.
As an Egyptologist, he was for twelve years (197182) Honorary Secretary of the Egypt Exploration Society, managing its excavations in Egypt and its activities programme in London, where he also taught hieroglyphics extramurally and produced the third volume, on musical instruments, of the British Museums Catalogue of Egyptian Antiquities. He excavated at Saqqara, and at Qasr Ibrim in Nubia, where he was Administrative Director of the Societys dig, with special responsibility for finds of written material including the longest passage so far discovered of poetry by the first Roman governor of Egypt, Cornelius Gallus. He spent almost four decades lecturing widely in the United States, United Kingdom, Eastern Europe, Egypt, and elsewhere.
Robert had a second career in music as joint editor of the Musical Times, music critic for The Times, and founding conductor of one of Londons leading amateur choirs, the Choir of St Bartholomews Hospital, whom he directed in performances with Londons foremost professional orchestras, culminating in concerts at the Royal Albert Hall. His two interests were united when he conducted the choir in a performance of Handels Alexanders Feast in the gardens of the British Embassy in Cairo to celebrate the Societys centenary.
After two further years in Cairo (20079), he returned to England and to the work of his charity, the Robert Anderson Research Charitable Trust, which he had founded in 1988 and which supports postgraduate students, many of them Egyptologists or musicians, for short periods of intensive study in London. At the same time he continued researching and writing on his own special subjects, leading to publication of books on Baalbek; relations between classical Greece and Rome and Egypt; the sites of Ancient Egypt; and the Coptic saint Shenoute´. He was a devoted Elgar scholar and contributed greatly to the composers biography and the work of the Elgar Society. |