Jane Manning

Jane Marian Manning OBE (20 September 193831 March 2021) was an English concert and opera soprano, writer on music, and visiting professor at the Royal College of Music. A specialist in contemporary classical music, she was described by one critic as "the irrepressible, incomparable, unstoppable Ms. Manning – life and soul of British contemporary music". Manning and her husband, the composer Anthony Payne were avid supporters of contemporary British music. They founded the virtuoso new music group Jane's Minstrels and many of Payne's works were premiered by Manning and the ensemble. Early life Manning was born in Norwich on 20 September 1938 to Gerald Manville Manning and Lily Manning (née Thompson). She was educated at Norwich High School for Girls, the Royal Academy of Music (graduating LRAM in 1958), and the Scuola di Canto at Cureglia, Switzerland. She was promoted to ARCM in 1962. She described her musical upbringing as one of a "very traditional background in oratorio and Gilbert & Sullivan". Career Manning's London debut came in 1964, at a Park Lane Group concert together with her mentor Susan Bradshaw. She gave her first BBC broadcast the following year, singing Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire. She first sang at a Henry Wood Promenade Concert in 1972, and was part of The Matrix with Alan Hacker. She co-founded her own virtuoso ensemble, called Jane's Minstrels, in 1988, together with her husband. The group played music by Henry Purcell, Edward Elgar, Frank Bridge, Percy Grainger, Anton Webern and Arnold Schoenberg.