My brother, Aidan Plender, who has died aged 64, will be remembered in Wales and further afield for his considerable contribution to the arts. A former general manager of St David’s Hall, Cardiff, the national concert hall of Wales, he founded and led the first postgraduate course in arts management in the UK at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, from which he retired last year. His students are now establishing themselves as a new generation of cultural leaders and managers in the arts across the country.
Born in Cardiff, Aidan was always passionate about music. Our parents, William, the director of a malting company, and his wife, Averil, tried to steer him towards a conventional career in the professions, but he quickly recognised that this was not for him and went off to Hull University to read music. He was a fine organist and studied under Martin Neary at Winchester Cathedral. With characteristic determination he also introduced himself to the great French organist André Marchal and took lessons with him in Paris despite a very idiosyncratic grasp of French.
My brother learned arts management on the job as a concert assistant at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Simon Rattle’s charismatic leadership. Then, after a stint as music officer at Kirklees in Huddersfield, where he was a member of the council of management of the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, he went back to Cardiff, and to St David’s Hall.
There he attracted some of the world’s greatest orchestras, such as the Vienna Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Dresden Staatskapelle, Leipzig Gewandhaus, London Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Conductors included Valery Gergiev, Bernard Haitink, Kurt Masur, Georg Solti and Simon Rattle. Aidan continued to advise on classical music programming at St David’s Hall until his death. He was also for 15 years chairman of the Association of British Concert Promoters and consulted for the Arts Council, among many others.
Aidan was utterly dedicated to his students at the Royal Welsh College and took great pride in the fact that virtually all of them found jobs in the arts. They appreciated his kindness, generosity and ability to laugh at himself. Though a very private, modest man, he was a witty raconteur and a wonderful person with whom to share a hangover after a night discussing music, art, literature and life over a bottle of whisky.
