William Blezard
| William Blezard | |
|---|---|
| Born |
10 March 1921 Padiham, Lancashire, England |
| Died | 2 March 2003 Barnes, London |
| Genres | Light music |
| Instruments | Piano |
| Years active | 1946 - 2003 |
| Associated acts | Joyce Grenfell, Marlene Dietrich, Honor Blackman, Laurence Olivier, Noël Coward |
William Blezard (10 March 1921 Padiham, Lancashire - 2 March 2003, Barnes, London) was a talented pianist and composer who was musical director to Noël Coward, Marlene Dietrich and Joyce Grenfell.
Blezard was born to working class parents who worked in one of Padiham's many cotton mills as weavers. Like many other local children, as a child he wore clogs, traditional for the area and not a sign of poverty. His tenor father sang semi-professionally. The mill-owner's daughter spotted his musical talent initially on the harmonium and persuaded the mill owner, Teddy Higham, to pay for piano lessons. In 1938 he left Clitheroe Royal Grammar School where he had playedGershwin's Rhapsody In Blue, having won a Lancashire county scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London where he was a pupil of Arthur Leslie Benjamin.
In 1954 he married musical conductor Joan Kemp Potter, whom he met at the Royal College. She died in 2001. He had cared for her after she had had a severe stroke in 1994. They had a son and daughter, known as Paul and Pookie.
Blezard never stopped working to improve his piano technique. He lost his boyhood stammer and broad Lancashire accent in early adulthood but fought personal demons of doubt and worry all his life.
He and his family lived in a rambling house just off Barnes Common, the living room dominated by his grand piano. Whenever he wanted to emphasise a point, he would leap up to demonstrate on the keys. He never retired and the night before he died he was performing at a charity concert in Barnes.
He joined the Royal Air Force at the outbreak of the Second World War and became a Morse code operator in Wick, Scotland.
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