Lynne Walker was a music critic and journalist who had a broad knowledge of the arts and, when living in Manchester, covered both music and theatre for The Independent throughout the North East and Scotland. Walker had a beguiling style, both on the radio and in the written media, of capturing the essence of a performance with the right phrase. Her microphone voice was assured and relaxed and she made memorable contributions to such programmes as Kaleidoscope and In Tune.
Lynne Walker attended the Mary Erskine School, Napier College and then did a teaching certificate at Moray House, all in Edinburgh. She did a BA at Huddersfield School of Music from 1977-80 where she studied piano, oboe and conducting. She won a Hesse Scholarship to the Aldeburgh Festival in 1977 and a Founders’ Trust scholarship to study choral conducting in France with Arthur Oldham, the founding conductor of the Edinburgh Festival Chorus.
Her professional career started in the press office of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO) in Glasgow. Because of her interest in contemporary music Walker concentrated much of her energies on the orchestra’s festival Music Nova. It had been inaugurated by Sir Alexander Gibson and Robert Ponsonby (respectively music director and administrator of the RSNO) to give an opportunity to young composers to have their works performed by a professional orchestra. Composers who benefited from the series included Thea Musgrave, Iain Hamilton and James MacMillan. Another of her responsibilities was to edit SNOscene, the in-house magazine.
In 1987 Walker left the RSNO to assume a similar role at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester and during her seven years there she was married to Gerald Larner, the music critic of The Guardian.
Walker had built up a separate career as a freelance arts journalist, writing for a variety of papers, and also started working on Radios 3 and 4 in the early 1990s. For ten years she was a regular presenter and interviewer on Kaleidoscope, often acting as devil’s advocate which engendered lively discussion.
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In 1991 Walker and her husband set up Edgewise, an arts consultancy that provided informative programme notes for many of the leading British orchestras, concert halls and festivals. Walker was particularly pleased to be heavily involved with the Edinburgh Festival and in 1992 she was appointed the festival’s programme editor. She brought to the post a great enthusiasm and a keen eye for detail.
Walker was given a diagnosis of cancer ten years ago and although the illness curtailed her broadcasting work she continued to host pre-concert talks for the BBC Philharmonic and the Hallé orchestras in Manchester. She sang in the Hallé Choir. Walker bore her illness with fortitude and her good nature never failed her. She took much pleasure, in her last few years, in planting fruit trees in her Cheshire garden.
Her love of Scotland, and Edinburgh in particular, remained central to her life. At her funeral, which she had planned, a recording of the bells of St Cuthbert’s Church, Edinburgh, rang out during the ceremony.
Walker is survived by her husband Gerald.
Lynne Walker, journalist and broadcaster, was born on October 24, 1956. She died on February 10, 2011, aged 54