{{Short description|English music educator (1922–2013)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox person | name = Avril Dankworth | birth_name = Avril Margaret Dankworth | birth_date = April 1922 | birth_place = Southend-on-Sea, Essex | death_date = March 2013 (age 90) | alma_mater = {{Plainlist| * Royal College of Music * Trinity College of Music }} | occupation = Music educator | spouse = {{marriage|Les Carew|1971|1994|end=his death}} }} '''Avril Margaret Dankworth''' (April 1922 – March 2013) was an English music educator who established the week-long summer Avril Dankworth Children's Music Camps (now the National Music Camps) for children aged between 7 and 17 in Wavendon, near Milton Keynes, in mid-1970. She also sang, taught music, authored multiple books and helped introduce the idiom in school music curriculum.
==Early life== In April 1922,<ref name="CompaniesHouseEntry">{{cite web|title=Avril Margaret Dankworth|url=https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/officers/9DLCWZ1YSkcNDeWF_dJUjJ1j85E/appointments|publisher=Companies House|accessdate=5 January 2021|archive-date=9 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210109111255/https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/officers/9DLCWZ1YSkcNDeWF_dJUjJ1j85E/appointments|url-status=live}}</ref> Avril Margaret Dankworth was born in Southend-on-Sea, Essex.<ref name=TESObit>{{cite news|last=Evans|first=Darren|title=Obituary – Avril Dankworth, 1922–2013|url=https://www.tes.com/news/obituary-avril-dankworth-1922-2013|work=TES|date=22 March 2013|accessdate=5 January 2021}}</ref><ref name=MTObit>{{Cite web|date=12 March 2013|title=Avril Dankworth dies aged 90|url=http://www.rhinegold.co.uk/magazines/music_teacher/news/music_teacher_news_story.asp?id=1720|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131002121355/http://www.rhinegold.co.uk/magazines/music_teacher/news/music_teacher_news_story.asp?id=1720|archive-date=2 October 2013|access-date=6 January 2021|website=Music Teacher}}</ref> Dankworth's family had connections to the music world; her mother Alice was a singer and choir trainer; her aunt played the brass; her uncle was a pianist;<ref name="DankworthBio">{{cite web|last=Gallagher|first=Margaret|date=September 2018|title=Avril Dankworth (1922–2013) – 'Making music fun'|url=https://catalogue.mkcdc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/WMK-004_Avril-Dankworth-e-bio-Sept-2018.pdf|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210109111254/https://catalogue.mkcdc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/WMK-004_Avril-Dankworth-e-bio-Sept-2018.pdf|archive-date=9 January 2021|accessdate=5 January 2021|website=|publisher=Milton Keynes City Discovery Centre}}</ref> and her brother John Dankworth was a jazz composer and saxophonist.<ref name="TESObit" /><ref name="DankworthBio" /> She was a Girl Guide,<ref name="MKFawcettEntry">{{cite news|title=Avril Dankworth|url=http://www.discovermiltonkeynes.co.uk/uploads/1/0/3/9/10393340/fawcett_panels_v1.pdf|publisher=Milton Keynes Fawcett|accessdate=5 January 2021|archive-date=9 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210109111253/http://www.discovermiltonkeynes.co.uk/uploads/1/0/3/9/10393340/fawcett_panels_v1.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> and liked the tradition of camp fire sing songs.<ref name="DankworthBio" /> Dankworth was educated at Walthamstow High School, Hockerill Teacher Training College, the Royal College of Music and the Trinity College of Music;<ref name="TESObit" /> she graduated from Trinity in 1951.<ref name="DankworthBio" />
==Career== Beginning in the 1950s, Dankworth taught music in colleges and schools in multiple schools in London.<ref name=MTObit/><ref name="DankworthBio" /> She also sang and accompanied acts such as the George Mitchell Choir and Mátyás Seiber.<ref name="TESObit" /> Dankworth also travelled across the globe, adjudicating, lecturing and teacher training for the Service Children's Education Authority.<ref name="TESObit" /><ref name="DankworthBio" /> She co-established the Sing for Pleasure movement in the mid-1960s from being inspired by the French choral organisation ''À coeur joie.'' While attending one of the ''À coeur joie'' festivals in Vaison-la-Romaine in 1967, Dankworth thought of the idea of setting up a week long educational music camp for children to make the learning of music "fun".<ref name="DankworthBio" />
In the late 1960s, she moved to the Milton Keynes area and educated at Bletchley Park's Teacher Training College.<ref name="DankworthBio" /><ref name="MKFawcettEntry" /> In late 1969,<ref name="DankworthBio" /> Dankworth, her brother and his wife Cleo Laine, the jazz singer, purchased the Old Rectory, Wavendon. They had the idea of converting its stable block into a theatre.<ref name="TESObit" /> Dankworth approached her brother, who was enthusiastic about the idea,<ref name="DankworthBio" /> and founded the Avril Dankworth Children's Music Camps (now the National Music Camps) at the back of the stable block in mid-1970.<ref name="TESObit" /><ref name="MKCitizenObit">{{cite news|title=National Youth Music Camp founder dies|url=https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A322254748/GPS?u=wikipedia&sid=GPS&xid=b67d09ea|work=Milton Keynes Citizen|date=13 March 2013|accessdate=5 January 2021|via=Gale OneFile: News|url-access=subscription|archive-date=9 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210109111256/https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&u=wikipedia&id=GALE%7CA322254748&v=2.1&it=r&sid=GPS&asid=b67d09ea|url-status=live}}</ref> The week-long summer music camps were for all children aged between 7 and 17 and there was no minimum entry grade only a musical love insisted on by Dankworth. Several of the former campers such as the record producer Guy Chambers, Christian Garrick, Tim Firth, the Sting guitarist Dominic Miller and Radiohead lead singer Thom Yorke all went on to attain successful careers in the music industry.<ref name="TESObit" /><ref name="MKCitizenObit" />
Dankworth was the author of several books such as ''Jazz'' in 1968 and ''Make Music Fun'' in 1973,<ref name="DankworthBio" /> and was instrumental in making music curriculum in schools better with the introduction of the idiom.<ref name="TESObit" /><ref name=MTObit/><ref name="MKCitizenObit" /> From 8 December 1992 to 22 June 2000, she was director of Wavendon All Music Plan.<ref name="CompaniesHouseEntry" />
==Personal life==
From 1971 until his death in 1994,<ref>{{cite news|last=Dankworth|first=John|authorlink=John Dankworth|title=Obituary: Les Carew|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-les-carew-1367973.html|work=The Independent|date=4 April 1994|accessdate=6 January 2021|archive-date=9 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210109111255/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-les-carew-1367973.html|url-status=live}}</ref> she was married to the Big Band-era trombonist Les Carew.<ref name="TESObit" /> Dankworth received an honorary doctorate "for services to music education" in 1990.<ref name="TESObit" /><ref name="MKCitizenObit" /> She developed a chest infection late in life and died in March 2013.<ref name="TESObit" /><ref name="MKCitizenObit" />
==Legacy== Margaret Gallagher for Milton Keynes Fawcett said of Dankworth: "She was an enthusiast, an enabler, and a doer - someone who didn't just have ideas, but made them happen. The National Youth Music Camps are her enduring achievement, and a superb reflection of the innovative spirit that has made Milton Keynes what it is."<ref name="DankworthBio" /> In late 2017, she was featured in the Women Who Made Milton Keynes exhibition that was set up by the MK Fawcett Society to celebrate "the lives and legacy of 10 pioneering women who helped create the city's identity and its landmarks"<ref>{{cite news|title=Meet the women who made Milton Keynes at exhibition|url=https://www.miltonkeynes.co.uk/news/meet-women-who-made-milton-keynes-exhibition-1067547|work=Milton Keynes Citizen|date=28 November 2017|accessdate=5 January 2021|archive-date=9 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210109111256/https://www.miltonkeynes.co.uk/news/meet-women-who-made-milton-keynes-exhibition-1067547|url-status=live}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist|30em}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Dankworth, Avril}} Category:1922 births Category:2013 deaths Category:People from Southend-on-Sea Category:English music educators Category:English women music educators Category:20th-century English non-fiction writers Category:20th-century English women writers Category:21st-century English women writers Category:Alumni of the Royal College of Music Category:Alumni of Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance Category:21st-century English writers