Kathleen Merritt
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Eva Kathleen Merritt MBE (31 August 1901 - November 1985) was a British conductor who led her own orchestra from the 1920s into the 1970s. She was best known as a pioneering woman conductor, and for her local music-making in Petersfield, Hampshire.
Merritt was born in Petersfield to parents Willie and Emma Merritt. She attended Bedales School and the Royal College of Music (violin, piano and conducting). She joined the (then ad hoc) Petersfield Festival Orchestra in 1920 as a first desk violinist. She became conductor of the Sheet Choral Society from 1923, and of the Sheet Orchestra from 1924.[1] From 1927 she founded and became conductor of the Petersfield Orchestra, a post she held until 1973.[2] Merritt also served on the Petersfield Music Festival committee for 43 years.[3] She lived at Bridge House in the centre of Petersfield.[4]
The Petersfield Music Festival had its peak years in the 1930s: it was a four-day event, incorporating choral competitions and running multiple concerts featuring many regional musicians and singers. Along with Merritt, the local philanthropist Harry Roberts helped raise funds to build a new Town Hall, which opened in 1935 as the primary Festival venue.[5] It is now known as the Festival Hall.[6]
In 1939 she founded the Kathleen Merritt Orchestra. During the Second World War, while both the orchestra and the Petersfield Festival were paused, Merritt continued to encourage the development of local music making and choirs, working as music advisor for the National Union of Townswomen's Guilds. After the war her orchestra, renamed as the Southern String Orchestra in 1952,[4] premiered many new works by British composers, including music by women composers.