Alexander Faris

Samuel Alexander "Sandy" Faris (11 June 1921 – 28 September 2015) was a Northern Irish composer, conductor and writer, known for his television theme tunes, including the theme music for the 1970s TV series Upstairs, Downstairs. He composed and recorded many operas and musicals, and also composed film scores (including for Georgy Girl) and orchestral works. As a conductor, he was especially known for his revivals of Jacques Offenbach and Gilbert and Sullivan operettas.

Faris was born in Caledon, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, the third of the four children of George Faris, a Presbyterian minister, and his wife Grace (née Acheson), a schoolteacher. His aunt was the sculptress Anne Acheson. His father died of pernicious anemia when he was a toddler, and his mother moved the family to Belfast, where she became headmistress of Victoria College girls' school. His mother noticed his musical aptitude, and he was given piano lessons. He was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and won a Kitchener scholarship to study music at Christ Church, Oxford University. He served in World War II with the Irish Guards. After the war, still stationed in Europe, he was involved with the restoration of damaged German opera houses. He attended the Royal College of Music in 1948 and worked as a chorus master with the Carl Rosa Opera Company.

Faris first conducted in London for a 1949 revival of Song of Norway at the Palace Theatre. In the 1950s, he served as the musical director for Carl Rosa and conducted for the Royal Ballet. He also conducted Summer Song at the Manchester Opera House in 1955 and Irma La Douce in the West End at the Lyric Theatre in 1958. In between, in 1956 he was given a Commonwealth Fund fellowship to study in New York at the Juilliard School. Back in London, he was musical director, in 1959, for the European premiere of Candide by Leonard Bernstein. In 1960, with Sadler's Wells Opera, he and director Wendy Toye helped to revive interest in the operettas of Jacques Offenbach, beginning with their much-revived production of Orpheus in the Underworld, followed in 1961 by La Vie parisienne in 1961. Other operas that he conducted at Sadler's Wells included Madam Butterfly in 1966. He conducted Carl Davis's television opera The Arrangement in 1965.

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