Born: 29 December, 1913, on the Isle of Wight.
Died: 22 June, 2009, in Ellon, Aberdeenshire, aged 95. IN 1945 June Aberdeen and her husband founded the Haddo House Choral and Operatic Society so that art and culture could ret
urn to Scotland and, especially, Aberdeenshire. The innovative event – two years before the first Edinburgh International Festival – was housed in their fine Adam house surrounded by glorious gardens, parkland and a small loch. It was the Glyndebourne of Scotland and over the years Aberdeen brought to the festival a galaxy of leading operatic and concert artists.
She had a nose for selecting future stars – Janet Baker, Lisa Milne, Willard White, for example – and somehow attracted international names such as Benjamin Britten, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Leon Goossens and Sviatoslav Richter. Her ambitious and visionary programmes included local musicians and singers; musicals were performed by the Haddo Youth Music Theatre, the Haddo Children's Theatre and the Haddo Youth and Children's Choirs. This unique blend of Aberdeenshire talent and international celebrities was brought together by the foresight and imagination of an inspiring and charismatic woman.
Beatrice Mary June Boissier, daughter of the headmaster of Harrow School, studied at the Royal College of Music in London, then taught at Bromley High School for Girls. She married the Earl of Haddo (later the 4th Marquess of Aberdeen and Temair) in 1939 and the two started the Haddo House Choral Society when music in post-war Scotland was at a low ebb.
The singers came from nearby Kirk choirs and students – initially for carol services. But Aberdeen had more expansive plans for the choir she conducted. In time Haddo House would see performances of such large-scale works as the Bach B Minor Mass, Handel's Messiah, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis and Rossini's massive William Tell. Nothing daunted Aberdeen and her enthusiasm was unbounded.
Aberdeen was always keen to further the careers of Scottish artists and she brought in members of the Scottish National Orchestra (SNO) and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra to add authority and experience. Pupils at nearby Gordonstoun were involved – Prince Charles played the cello in the pit and Prince Edward appeared during his schooldays.
The range of performances was extraordinary – Mozart and Verdi's Requiems, and Sir Alexander Gibson brought the full forces of the SNO, with the Haddo Chorus and local boys' choirs, to perform in Aberdeen Cathedral one of the earliest recitals of Britten's War Requiem. Peter Pears and Britten performed Schumann's Dichterliebe in Haddo House and were entranced by the setting.
Nothing typified the amalgam of gifted amateur and professional more than Aberdeen's equally committed husband. He sang in the choir, acted in the plays and was a genial host.
Aberdeen fostered the early career of the young Glasgow-born Rosalind Sutherland when she cast her as Desdemona in Verdi's Otello in 1996. She returned as Micaela in Carmen in 1997 and went on to sing the title role in Madame Butterfly at San Francisco Opera House.
When her husband died in 1974 (the year Haddo became the property of the National Trust of Scotland) some thought the music-making might cease. That was to underestimate the formidable Aberdeen. Her first opera was Carmen, to be followed by Verdi's Macbeth, Britten's Gloriana and Puccini's Turandot. The scale of the operations – let alone the rehearsals and preparations – was tremendous. Nothing fazed her. In one opera the stage direction read: "Singer enters mounted on a horse." No problem at Haddo.
Aberdeen took seriously her duties as an adviser to Scottish Opera. She had long been a loyal supporter so she thought long before publicly criticising some of the company's productions in the 1980s – especially Don Giovanni and Oberon.
A sculpture of Aberdeen, by Laurence Broderick, poised with conductor's baton, is on display in the hall at Haddo. It was unveiled by Prince Edward on her 80th birthday. For her 90th birthday Aberdeen handed the baton to the conductor James Loughran for a memorable performance of Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius.
In 1981, when Aberdeen was made a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the citation read: "Distinguished for her unique contribution to music in Scotland, the special qualities of music-making at Haddo, increasingly widely recognised by the arts critics, stem from her achievement in fostering the involvement of a local audience and amateur chorus with professional instrumentalists and singers – some highly illustrious, some young but always percipiently chosen."
June Aberdeen was appointed a deputy lieutenant for Aberdeenshire in 1971, she was a governor of Gordonstoun School, of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and of the Royal College of Music. She was awarded a CBE in 1989 and is survived by four children.
The full article contains 795 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
