Graham Johns was still in his teens when he left New Zealand to pursue a career as a professional percussionist.
Having grown up in Christchurch’s thriving music education scene – which he describes as an El Sistema decades before anyone had heard of Venezuela’s – Graham Johns became the timpanist of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra aged just 19.
After stints of work and study across North America and Europe, Graham found himself in charge of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra’s percussion section, a job he has held for the past 40 years.
The Graham Johns bell Photo: Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
Graham was still buzzing from his final concert with the Philharmonic when he spoke with Three to Seven host Bryan Crump. The signatures on his farewell card are something of a “who’s who” of European orchestral music, and include the likes of Sir Simon Rattle, Vasily Petrenko and Dame Evelyn Glennie.
During his time with the orchestra, Graham led the Forever Bells project, and to mark his retirement the orchestra had an A-flat church bell cast in his honour, adding to their collection of bells which is the largest of any orchestra in the UK.
Graham talked to Bryan about how he ended up in Liverpool, his love of big bells, the challenges of wielding a Mahler hammer and the pivotal role the Christchurch School of Instrumental Music and its founder Robert Perks played in his early music education in the 1960s and ‘70s.
Music
Berlioz, Hector: Symphonie fantastique (4), excerpt - Berlin Phil/Herbert von Karajan (DG 415 325)
Shostakovich, Dmitri: Symphony No 10 in E minor Op 93 (2) - Royal Liverpool Phil/Vasily Petrenko (Naxos 8.572461)
