| Biography | Jeffrey Neilson Taylor (20 September 1930, Huddersfield, England - 28 December 2010, Holmfirth, Yorkshire, England) was an English footballer, opera singer and music teacher.
A former long-serving Professor of Singing at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Jeffrey Neilson Taylor was one of those remarkable people who made a success of one career before switching to a dramatically different pursuit with even greater success. As a professional footballer, he was not good enough to reach the highest ranks and was never capped, but as an opera and stage singer he was a distinctive and successful baritone, admired by another keen footballer and near contemporary, Luciano Pavarotti. Taylor then added even more lustre to his name as a teacher of music, and many of his students from the RSAMD in Glasgow went on to have singing careers. Such was the devotion he inspired in some of those students that they continued to take lessons from him long after he retired and left Scotland, and he made many friends in his 18 years at the academy. |