John Paynter, 1931–2010: an appreciation

John Paynter’s death this year has deprived British music education of its most inspirational advocate during the second half of the 20th century. John’s teaching in primary and secondary schools during the 1950s played a major role in shaping his vision of music at the heart of the curriculum. With his ear for an apt phrase, John loved to quote American novelist Toni Morrison’s description of the wonderful presence and power of music as ‘a way of being in the world’. During the 1960s, John trained teachers in colleges in Liverpool and Chichester, before joining the innovative music department at the University of York, where he remained until his retirement in 1997. It was with the publication in 1970 of Sound and Silence that his years of pioneering work with children and older students came to fruition and the force and originality of his ideas about music education made their first big impact.