Christopher Morley

Christopher Morley is a product of World War II, as a result of his father, serving in the British Army, meeting a beautiful young Italian woman in Naples. Their first date was a performance of Boito’s Mefistofele at the San Carlo opera house, and the die was obviously cast.

Christopher was born and educated in Brighton, and it was a visit as a schoolboy to a rehearsal at Glyndebourne of Mozart’s Idomeneo in 1964 which made him realise that he had to have a life in music. A three-week course in Salzburg in the next year confirmed it, and in 1966 he was admitted to the Music Department of the University of Birmingham on an Open Entrance Scholarship, under the inspiring Professorship of Anthony Lewis.

Upon graduating with Honours in 1969 he took up a career as a schoolteacher, serving as Head of Music in schools in Walsall, Edgbaston and Halesowen. In the same year he was invited to write his first review for the Birmingham Post, and in 1988, having escaped from the classroom, he was appointed Chief Music Critic to the newspaper. This, regrettably, brought to an end his conducting activities with various amateur organisations, though he has dusted down his baton for a few occasions since. Today, in addition to his work for the Birmingham Post, Christopher also writes for Musical Opinion, International Piano, and Opera, as well as contributing broadcasts to BBC Radio 3.

Also in 1988 Christopher Morley began teaching at Birmingham School of Music, at first in a small way, tutoring small groups of students in “Paperwork”, but later, by which time the BSM had been renamed as Birmingham Conservatoire, lecturing in music history, performance practice, harmony and counterpoint, and aural training, as well as liberal studies. He also ran a class in music journalism and criticism, many of whose alumni went on to make an impact as music journalists and critics, both in the UK and in Sweden. He was awarded an Honorary Fellowship in 2002, and retired from the Conservatoire in 2010. As a result of a commission from Julian Lloyd Webber, Principal of the now Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, he published a history of the institution in December 2017.

During the course of his musical writing he has accepted invitations from all over Europe, as well as from Russia and Japan, where he was invited in 2017 to assess the country’s symphony orchestras with a western critic’s ears.  He also gives talks to music societies all over the UK.

Away from music, Christopher Morley loves cricket, Brighton and Hove Albion, local history, books — and cannot escape the tyranny of his beloved cat, Poppy.