Jan Holdstock, musician and composer

Setting her scores to her own, often extremely witty lyrics, she became a leading and hugely popular composer.

She published prolifically and was for many years a senior lecturer in music, at first at the James Graham College in Farnley, west Leeds, and later at Beckett Park, working closely with the department head, John Pitts, on collections of music for school use.

The only child of the celebrated musician Lionel Nutley, who was county music advisor for Cumbria and who lived to be 101, she was educated at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and was a student of the organist and composer Dr Bernard Rose at Magdalen College.

She moved to Leeds in the 1970s, following a period in the Bahamas, helping teachers learn how to teach music.

Her familiar works included the popular Recorder from the Beginning series for children, and her commitment to providing music for those with special educational needs led her to set up the acclaimed Yorkshire association for such music, YAMSENSpecially Music, as well as the annual Lord Mayor’s carol concert for people with special needs.

She had a long association with the Sing for Pleasure organisation and was respected by generations of teacher training students in Leeds and colleagues in the Sinfonia of Leeds, in which she played viola.

Despite the challenges of severe arthritis throughout her adult life, she soldiered on through numerous medical procedures, declaring herself largely bionic by the time it had all finished.

Her unusually active “retirement” saw her joining creative writing groups and choirs. She was a long-serving member of St Peter’s Singers, with whom she travelled widely, and a lynchpin of Leeds Minster Choir.

The substance of her cantata, Running on Rails, which celebrated the creation of the Settle to Carlisle railway, was presented at the Leeds Schools’ Music Association Festival Concert at Leeds Town Hall.

She is survived by her son, Robin. Her former husband, Tony, and later partner, Stan Holloway, predeceased her. A service of Thanksgiving for her life will be held at Leeds Minster on Monday July 17, at 11am.