The life and achievements of Professor John Paynter, Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York

Until John Paynter arrived on the scene, music education was the Cinderella within music, considered peripheral to performance. Paynter changed that almost single-handedly.

His vision ensured that the music he believed to be within every child could be brought to the surface and made to blossom. As music educator, but equally significantly as writer and composer, he brought the teaching of music into the modern age, redefining its place within the curriculum.

He was born in London. From Emmanuel School, Wandsworth he went to Trinity College of Music. After National Service, he taught in primary and secondary schools, before training teachers at colleges in Liverpool and Chichester during the 1960s.

Wilfrid Mellers invited him in 1969 to the University of York’s music department, where he remained until his retirement in 1997, becoming head of department in 1982 and later professor of music education, at that time one of only two in the country.

For many years he staged annual summer schools with the publisher Bill Colleran, which attracted a worldwide following.

In collaboration with his York colleague Peter Aston, he produced his first influential book, Sound And Silence, in 1970. Its graded assignments for classroom use emphasised the importance of children experiencing music through creating it themselves.

This was essentially a musical theatre of sounds, springing from the imagination of the pupils. For Paynter was passionate about children learning best when enjoying themselves.

The widespread ripples caused by this volume and its sequel, Hear And Now (1972), led to Paynter’s appointment as director of the Schools Council Project, Music In The Secondary School, from 1973 until 1982. This had long been a thorny topic, given that secondary pupils had been deserting music in droves, considering it irrelevant to the popular forms that they enjoyed outside the classroom.

A book using the project’s title (1982) resulted in wholesale changes to GCSE music, with composition a central activity, and after 1990 music became a foundation subject in the National Curriculum. Paynter was the guiding spirit behind these initiatives. All the while, a succession of leading teachers came to York to drink at the fountainhead.

As a result of his work as general editor for Cambridge University Press (CUP) of its Resources in Music series, John Paynter became co-founder, with Keith Swanwick, of the British Journal of Music Education in 1984, also published by CUP.

He continued this until 1994, helping to edit the influential Companion To Contemporary Musical Thought. Oxford University Press published a selection of his writings in 2008 entitled Thinking And Making.

Blessed with considerable energy, he also found time to compose despite his busy career. His chamber music included two string quartets. There was also a piano sonata and a number of songs. His most telling achievements were for youngsters, however, starting with the children’s opera, The Space Dragon Of Galatar (1972), to a libretto by his first wife, Elizabeth. His Galaxies for orchestra and audience involved the BBC Symphony Orchestra and 3,000 children in its Festival Hall premiere in 1978.

Even more impressive was the York Minster premiere two years later of his epic, The Voyage Of St Brendan, with 400 performers including players, singers, dancers, actors and mimers. He was also an able harpsichordist.

A man of strong opinions, who did not suffer fools gladly, he nevertheless always had time to listen and offer advice. He was appointed OBE in 1985. He lived for many years in Newton upon Derwent. After the death of Elizabeth, he married Joan, a family friend, who survives him along with the daughter of his first marriage. His contribution to music education was immense.