Paul Mountain, musician and teacher

He was the son of Peter Mountain, the Shipley-born musician who had been leader of the Liverpool Philharmonic and had played with some of the greatest names of the 20th century – Toscanini, Furtwängler, Klemperer and von Karajan, among them. His mother, Muriel, was also a celebrated musician, performing as a solo concert pianist.

However, it was economics, not music, that Paul chose to study at Warwick University. He was also a gifted tennis player and could have chosen a career in either field. But in 1971 he joined the BBC Training Orchestra, where his father was string specialist, and subsequently the Philharmonia in London, working with the like of Riccardo Muti and Lorin Mazel.

In 1975, he moved to Leeds to take up a position with Leeds Music Support Services, later Artforms, working as director of the Leeds Youth Orchestra, leader of the Leeds String Quartet and later as a peripatetic teacher.

A passionate believer in the importance of music in education, he was influential in the lives of hundreds of young people across Leeds. As director of the Youth Orchestra, he organised and ran tours across Europe, performing in Paris, Spain, Germany, The Netherlands and elsewhere.

However, on the return from one trip to Italy, he fell, exhausted, from a top floor window, and suffered spinal injuries and concussion.

After six months in Wakefield’s Pinderfields Hospital, he returned home, paralysed from the waist down and having lost some fine motor skills in his hands which left him unable to play the violin to his previous standard.

Nonetheless, he continued to work as conductor of the Leeds Youth Orchestra and perform in schools as a part of the Leeds String Trio. He also taught violin until, his retirement in 2005.

At that point, he began working as a counsellor at Pinderfields Hospital, for the charity Aspire, for people with spinal injuries. His own experience allowed him to empathise fully with the patients, and he continued in the role until last year, when a brain tumour was diagnosed.

A lifelong socialist, he stood for election as a councillor in 1992 and was a founder member of the Almscliffe branch of the Labour Party. He railed against injustice, particularly where it concerned disability.

He is survived by his wife, Carol (Cally), son Stef, two sisters, stepchildren Danny and Lekky, and three grandchildren.