Jess Jameson, music teacher

Jess Jameson, who has died at 89, was a renowned music teacher and a key figure in the development of the Mrs Sunderland Music Festival, the annual Huddersfield event named after the 19th century local soprano, Susannah Sunderland.
Jess JamesonJess Jameson
Jess Jameson

A doctor’s wife born and brought up in London, where she attended Haberdashers’ Aske’s and the Royal Academy of Music, Mrs Jameson was a long-time resident of West Yorkshire.

She taught piano for two decades at the former Bretton Hall College of Education near Wakefield, and gave private lessons to generations of pupils. She was also a member of the British Federation of Music Festivals, and served as an adjudicator at events across the country. In between, she was a committee member and president of Huddersfield Philharmonic orchestra.

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But it was her work with the Mrs Sunderland Festival that brought her perhaps her greatest acclaim. She began as a piano accompanist and soon also became a committee member, rising to chairman in 1976.

One of her successors, J Michael Hampshire, remembered the aura of calm graciousness with which she chaired meetings, and attributes in no small measure the high esteem in which the festival is held today, to her service over many years.

In particular, he said, she devoted much time to keeping the enterprise solvent, and to visiting and chivvying potential sponsors.

In 2000, when health forced her to take a step back, she was made the festival’s first president. The Jessie Jameson Centenary Baton remains the first prize in the choir finals.

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Her Christian faith underpinned all her activities, and she was an active member of Gideons International and of Lindley Evangelical Church where she served as a deacon and pianist for many years.

She lived in Golcar, Huddersfield, for 33 years with her GP husband, Dr Ron Jameson, and daughters Pippa and Susie, moving to Fixby, when Dr Jameson retired in 1988.

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