The Jean Meikle Music Trust

The Jean Meikle Music Trust was established in 2005 in memory of Julius’s mother, Jean Meikle, a passionate lover of song and chamber music in all its forms, and a devotee of Wigmore Hall. The Trust seeks to encourage outstanding young voice and piano partnerships and funds the Song Duo Prize in the Wigmore International Song Competition. Artists taking part in the scheme include Thomas Allen, Ian Bostridge, Helmut Deutsch, Julius Drake, Gerald Finley, Simon Keenlyside, Phillip Langridge, Felicity Lott, Ann Murray, Mark Padmore and Roger Vignoles.

The winners of the 2009 Song Duo Prize are baritone Gerard Collett and pianist James Baillieu

Gerard Collett (baritone)

James Baillieu (piano)

Jean Meikle

Jean Meikle was a passionate concert-goer all her adult life. As a teenager, inspired by a recital given at her local music club by the soprano Esther Salamon and pianist Paul Hamburger, she trained part-time as a singer while working in a legal firm. However after her marriage to Michael Drake in 1956 and the birth in due course of four children, her great devotion to her family took precedence.

Jean’s chief musical love was chamber music and she heard all the great pianists, quartets, trios, duos and Lieder partnerships when they came to London. The song recitalists of her generation she most admired were Dietrich Fischer Dieskau and Victoria de los Angeles, together with the pianists Gerald Moore and Geoffrey Parsons, while the Amadeus Quartet and Beaux Arts Trio were other particular favourites.

However from the late 1970’s, when Jean started following the concerts of a new generation of artists, and took great pleasure as their careers progressed. Through the small music agency which she established, Jean Meikle Management, she helped to nurture and encourage many outstanding musicians.