Michael Kennedy (music critic)

Dr. George Michael Sinclair Kennedy CBE (born 19 February 1926 in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester) is an English biographer, journalist and writer on classical music. He joined the Daily Telegraph at the age of 15 in 1941, and began writing music criticism for it in 1948. He was Northern Editor of the paper from 1960 to 1986, joint chief music critic from 1986 to 2005, and chief music critic of the Sunday Telegraph from 1989 to 2005. He was on the Board of Governors of the Royal Northern College of Music from 1971 to 2006. He was made an OBE in 1981 and a CBE in 1997. Michael Kennedy has been semi-retired since 2005.

As a writer his main interests have been late Romantic music and the history of music-making in Manchester since the 19th century. He is particularly well known for acute and sympathetic studies of the works of Vaughan Williams (who was during his last years a close friend) and Elgar.

Works

• The Hallé Tradition (1960)
• The Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams (1964)
• Portrait of Elgar (1968)
• Elgar Orchestral Music (1970)
• Portrait of Manchester (1970)
• Barbirolli (1971)
• The History of the Royal Manchester College of Music, 1893-1972 (1971)
• The Autobiography of Charles Hallé, with Correspondence and Diaries (1972) [Edited by Michael Kennedy]
• Mahler (1974)
• Richard Strauss (1976)
• The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music (1980) [Several times revised, expanded and retitled]
• Britten (1981)
• Strauss Tone Poems (1984)
• Adrian Boult (1987)
• Portrait of Walton (1989)
• Buxton Festival, 1979-1988 (1989)
• Music Enriches All (1994)
• Who's Who in Opera (1998) [By Joyce Bourne; consultant editor Michael Kennedy]
• Richard Strauss: Man, Musician, Enigma (1999)
• Buxton: An English Festival (2004)
• The Life of Elgar (2004)