Ronald Settle

Settle was born in Liverpool, Lancashire on 21 June 1909. He was educated at the Royal Manchester College of Music, where he studied pianoforte as a student of Frank Merrick.

Settle was Musical Director at the Liverpool Playhouse for twenty-six years from 1945 until 1971, when cost saving measures dictated that two pianists were too expensive and that recorded music would be played instead.[2]

Joan Ovens was the second pianist and they would play duets before a performance, as well as during the shows and intervals.[3]

Settle wrote incidental music for numerous plays. For example, during the 1944-45 season, this included Shakespeare's Hamlet and Ben Jonson's The Alchemist.[4]

Willard Stoker’s play, ‘I Remember, I Remember’, (with music composed by Settle), was staged at the Playhouse in the week commencing 14 June 1960 and starred Rita Tushingham, who had assumed the position of student Assistant Stage Manager with the Liverpool Repertory Company in 1958, a company which presented stage plays at the Liverpool Playhouse.[5][6]

Settle also arranged music by other composers to suit Playhouse performances and the theatre’s two pianos. This included H. Fraser Simson’s music to Toad of Toad Hall by A A Milne and based on Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows, performed in the week commencing 23 December 1958.[7]

In 1991 he returned to the Playhouse to perform in a concert to help prevent the theatre from closing.[8]

Settle had a studio for many years at the Bluecoat Chambers in Liverpool.[9]

It was here that he taught piano and composition to students, and where practical music examinations took place for the Liverpool examinations centre of the London College of Music.

British composer Ian Venables studied piano with Settle at the Bluecoat Chambers between 1971 and 1977.[10]

His Bechstein piano was loved by many of Settle’s students and, after his death, found a new home through one of the students who had enjoyed playing it.[11]

For many years, Settle acted as the Liverpool representative for London College of Music examinations.

Practical music examinations took place in Settle's studio in the Bluecoat Chambers, while theory examinations were organised by him at the Liverpool YMCA building on Mount Pleasant.

The book 'Music in the theatre' was written by Settle and published in London by Herbert Jenkins on 1 January 1957.[12]

He wrote the song ‘Shadows’ for Joan Hammond (performed by Cheryl Barker on Melba Recordings' CD Pure Diva released in 2011).[13]

Music at the Playhouse - Playhouse Golden Jubilee brochure, published 1961.[14]

Settle married a singer, Margaret, and they had two children - a daughter Anne[15] and one other, who went on to provide eight grandchildren and fifteen great grandchildren for the couple.[16]