| Biography | Norman Tattersall (13 October 1924 - May 2001) was educated at Burnley Grammar School and Birmingham University. In the Second World War he served with the Royal Engineers in India. He then studied at the Royal Academy of Music where he won the Boise Award and the Betjeman Prize for Operatic Singing. As well as singing, Tattersall sat on many international music juries and taught singing at the Royal Academy of Music, where his pupils included Felicity (now Dame Felicity) Lott.
During the 1950s and early 1960s, Tattersall performed in Britain and abroad, working with, among others, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Arthur Bliss, Lennox Berkeley, Gerald Finzi and Benjamin Britten. He sang with Kirsten Flagstadt in 1953 at a performance of Dido and Aeneas at the Mermaid Theatre, London. He also gave regular recitals on the Third Programme.
In 1981 he was elected Fellow of the Royal College of Music. Soon afterwards he became the first Leverhulme Fellow of the British Federation of Young Choirs, serving on its General Council from 1984. He succeeded Sir Peter Pears and Dame Eva Turner as an Advisory Member of the American Foundation Board, National Association of Teachers of Singing. He was founder chairman of the Royal Academy Guild of Fellows.
For many years Tattersall was Head of Singing and Director of Opera at the School of Music, Colchester Institute, Essex, where he produced more than 40 operas. He was Chairman of the Association of Teachers of Singing from 1982 to 1985.
He wrote two books, Singing in a Nutshell - a Dozen Dos and Don'ts, which became popular with music teachers, and a memoir, As I Live and Breathe - A Singer's Story (2000). |