LONDON – John Alldis, whose choir ranged from working with opera to collaborating with Duke Ellington and Pink Floyd, has died of pneumonia. He was 81.
He founded the professional, 16-voice John Alldis Choir in 1962 and made an early mark with the world premiere performance of Alexander Goehr’s “A Little Cantata for Proverbs.”
Subsequent recordings, mainly for Argo, tackled modern composers including Malcolm Williams, Harrison Birtwistle and Richard Rodney Bennett, but the choir repertoire reached back as far as the Renaissance.
Choir members who later established solo careers include Philip Langridge, John Shirley-Quirk and Ian Partridge.
The Alldis Choir worked with Pink Floyd on the “Atom Heart Mother” album in 1970, and in 1973 on a recording of Ellington’s “Third Sacred Concert.”
Alldis worked with choral ensembles for the London Symphony Orchestra and the London Philnarmonic, and taught at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
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