My sister, Marian Kitching, who has died aged 92, was more widely known by her maiden and professional name, Marian Creaser. Initially in the north-east of England, and then for 50 years in Oxford, she was renowned as a pianist, accompanist, teacher, examiner and as an impassioned advocate of high standards in musical performance.
Our parents, Polly (nee Hillaby) and Raymond Creaser, ran a newsagent’s business in Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham, but were also both accomplished musicians. Marian went to the local girls’ grammar school in Stockton, and from an early age was winning piano competitions throughout the region, broadcasting in programmes such as Children’s Hour, and playing concertos with local orchestras.
Beginning a piano course at the Royal Academy of Music in 1949, she realised that her interests lay primarily in accompanying, partly because, since she was a child, she had enjoyed phenomenal powers of sight-reading. In her Royal Academy finals, the sight-reading examiner was astounded: “That wasn’t sight-reading,” he said, “that was a performance”.
After the Academy, Marian made a promising start to a career as an accompanist and teacher, working with a series of eminent musicians and singers, including the young Janet Baker. But three years after having married Brian Crawford in 1955, she moved back to Stockton for the sake of his career, and built up a thriving practice there as a teacher and accompanist.
The marriage produced three children but otherwise was not a success, and in 1973 she brought it to an end by moving down to Oxford. There she quickly established herself as a leading musician on the local scene, and once again set up a teaching practice, which flourished until her death. From its outset she also became heavily involved in the Oxford music festival, first as an accompanist, then as a committee member, and later as an omni-competent chairman from 1979 until her death.
From the early 1980s Marian also enjoyed two decades of travelling around the country as an examiner for the Associated Board of the Royal schools of music. But above all she loved teaching. Even in the closing weeks of her life, the oppressions of ageing simply dropped away from her when she was working with her pupils.
On personal grounds, the Oxford part of her adult life was much more content than the first, as she enjoyed 30 years of happy marriage with Neil Kitching, a GP, whom she married in 1987.
Neil died in 2017. She is survived by her three children, Carole-Anne, Tony and Adrian, and stepson, David, and by me.
