While undoubtedly a musician of formidable intellect, imagination and technique, George Odam, who died in March aged 83, was also one of the most significant and influential figures in music education throughout the second half of the last century.
With interests across all the arts, this particular champion of creative music making emerged as one of the most dynamic of that immediate post-war generation of movers and shakers who achieved so much in often difficult circumstances.
Whether as an academic, a composer, conductor or writer, for him the most appropriate way to study school music was through the sound it made. It was a view he never ceased to propound with great vision, helping turn the subject into an international movement.
Teacher
Born in the Suffolk market town of Beccles in September 1938, George Neville Odam was educated at Sir John Leman School, at that time in the more than capable hands of its founding headmaster, his father. Initially moving to the University of Manchester where he read Music, History of Art and English, he then studied for a music teaching qualification at University College London Institute of Education.
He began his professional career in 1961, appointed director of music at Totton Grammar School. Five years later he moved to Bath, becoming a lecturer at Newton Park Teacher Training College. In 1975 this became Bath College of Higher Education, before emerging 30 years later as Bath Spa University, Odam now its professor of music and music education.
There, amid what became a noted centre of excellence in music education, his outlook found a happy and expressive outlet. In addition to his teaching commitments, he never ceased to play a pivotal role in the wider cultural community. Having been an early Hesse Scholar at the Aldeburgh Festival, six years later he became the founder and conductor of the National Scout and Guide Symphony Orchestra.
He also conducted both Wells Cathedral Voluntary Choir and the Institute Singers. Undertaking further research at the University of Southampton, those helping guide his career included Benjamin Britten, Michael Tippett, Alexander Goehr, Jonathan Harvey and Hans Keller.
Composer
Much of what he taught, he practised in his own extensive output of original compositions. Proving particularly popular were a wide range of choral cantatas for younger performers that included Baba Yaga, Robin Hood, A Cantata for Christmas, The Angry Arrow, Inca, St George and the Dragon, Tutankhamun, as well as a three act opera, Peredur.
No less impressive remains a Festival Overture for Brass Band, premiered at Bath International Festival, a challenging Sonata for Tuba and Piano, an atmospheric Venetian inspired Concerto for Piano, Timpani and Orchestra and Sonata Ecologica for Recorders and Piano. Sadly neglected are a number of meticulously crafted songs and sacred choral works, each cleverly and precisely imagined, their structures handled with particular fluency and care.
Writer
Always precise, literate and stylish, Odam proved to be an equally fine writer. Amid many significant contributions to specialist periodicals such as Music Teacher, Music in Education and International Music Education Research, a far more extended example of his art forms the centrepiece of Aspects of Teaching Secondary Music, edited by Gary Spruce.
Creating Music Time for Brownies, he then acted as the English consultant for the four volumes of the American Silver Burdett Music course, suitably tailored to offer a comprehensive set of resources for Key Stage 3 of the National Curriculum. In The Sounding Symbol: Music Education in Action, while demonstrating how best to organise pupil’s musical experiences, Odam pioneered opening up the classroom to musical influences outside of the Western classical tradition.
Researcher and editor
Taking his leave of Bath in 1999 after 34 years service, he subsequently moved to London to spend the next decade as the head of research and staff development at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. While there, he acted as the editor for a series of major new Guildhall Research Studies.
These included Seeking the Soul: The Music of Alfred Schnittke, The Reflective Conservatoire co-edited with Dr Nicholas Bannan, and Graham Johnson’s survey of Benjamin Britten’s voice and piano output. In partnership with Jaume Rosset i Llobet, Odam compiled The Musician’s Body: A Maintenance Manual for Peak Performance. In 2007, written to honour a lifetime of friendship, he distilled his extensive knowledge into what has become a seminal text, Landscapes of the Mind: The Music of John McCabe.
Conductor, speaker and chairman
Sadly seen all too rarely as a conductor with professional ensembles, with student and amateur performers Odam proved highly efficient, leading them with humour and inexhaustible enthusiasm. Likewise, his scholastic credentials also found a ready outlet as a keynote speaker at conferences and seminars worldwide.
Chairman of both the National Music and Music Disability Information Service and the United Kingdom Council for Music Education and Training, he was also a longstanding Patient Governor of Bath’s Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases.
In 1994, he was awarded the Music Industries Award for Outstanding Service to Music Education. More recently his talents had helped revive interest in the work and music of a long neglected fellow Suffolk born composer, Martin Shaw.
