Barbershop quartet: Peter Alexander, Bill Kempster, Richard Dixon, Peter Bridgwood
Thanks to Peter Bridgwood for providing names.
Thanks to Richard's sister, Fran Wilson, for the photo.
SCUNA member, 1970 - 1978
SCUNA president, 1974
Convenor, Mayhem Minifest, Canberra, 1975
Obituary | Absent Friends | Memories | Notes
Melbourne-born tenor Richard Dixon died on 17 January [1991] at the Sacred Heart Hospice, Sydney, after a long illness. He was forty-four.
Richard was a founding member of the Leonine Consort1, and sang with that group from 1978 to 1981. He worked as a soloist with university choirs in Canberra, Sydney and Hobart, and with the Sydney Philharmonia Motet Choir, Sydney University Pro Musica, the Sydney University Chamber Choir, the Renaissance Players, and the choirs of Christ Church St Laurence2 and St Paul's College, Sydney University. Richard also worked in the Extra Chorus of the Australian Opera from 1979 to 1986, and performed in recital in Sydney and regional centres of NSW and Victoria. He organised a barbershop quartet which sang at numerous private functions around Sydney and at department stores at Christmas time.
Peter Bridgwood, a friend and singing colleague of Richard's, spoke at the funeral service at St Mary's Cathedral on 21 January:
'When Charles Colman3 set about recreating the Leonine Consort as a professional group in early 1978, he invited Richard and me to leave our respective jobs and interstate homes to come to Sydney and form the tenor line ... and so started for both of us and the other Leonines, for the next three years, a life of so many shared happy musical (and not so musical) moments.
'If I had to choose just one musical memory of Richard, what stands out for me is when he sang with Elizabeth Campbell the duet 'Abraham and Isaac' by Benjamin Britten.
'After the Leonines, Richard was seldom not involved with some form or other of singing, be it opera with the Australian Opera, solo work, propping up the tenor line in this choir or that choir ... even calling together a barbershop quartet (now called the Sydney Coves) to sing at a wedding.
'We are all here now not to mourn Richard's death but ... to celebrate his life which has touched us all and many others not able to attend today ...
'Richard was one of the kindest men I ever met.'
-From SING OUT 8 (1) 1991, the quarterly journal of the Australian National Choral Association (ANCA)
Reproduced with the kind permission of ANCA and Peter Bridgwood
Barbershop quartet: Peter Alexander, Bill Kempster, Richard Dixon, Peter Bridgwood
Thanks to Peter Bridgwood for providing names.
Thanks to Richard's sister, Fran Wilson, for the photo.
Richard - dear Tricky4 - was a fine tenor: he had an excellent ear and was a rock-solid sight reader. He started out in MONUCS5, and went on from SCUNA to full-time professional singing with Charles Colman's Leonine Consort, and later the Song Company.
Tricky was a party animal - he'd be here tonight if he could, and he'd "do a number" later ...6
In the early 70s we shared a singing teacher in the wonderful Eleanor Houston, who has a slightly eccentric turn of phrase. One day she said to me, "Sing this once more, and then - please go". Tricky and I were always telling each other to "Please go" after that.
I once confided in him that I got very tired of being told I was tooooo sensitive. Tricky knew exactly how that felt, but ever afterwards, he'd tease me: "The trouble with you, Val, is, you're just tooooo sensitive". We even decided that "tooooo" should be spelt with a fermata or pause mark over the top.
One of the last times I saw him, he told me he wanted me to realise what he'd now realised: that life was too short to be tooooo sensitive.
- Val T
From the Canberra Times of Friday 2 September 1977. Image supplied by Robert K. L. Taylor
Publicity sing for Canberra Intervarsity Choral Festival 1977.
Linda Mann second from left; then Marie Aubert of TUMS (now Marie Keane); Richard Dixon on right.
Thanks to Trevor Keane for providing a name.
If you can identify anyone else, please me. - Val T
Tricky Dicky. Why was he called that?! A more humane, beautiful, talented and witty person I would like to meet. I wish he was here, with his beautiful voice and non-judgemental personality. Here's to Richard Dixon's spirit!
- Mark Penman
Tricky was a good friend to me too, and we shared a house in Paddington for a time (Tricky, Elizabeth Campbell, Peter Bridgwood and myself). I got to know a succession of close friends in Richard's life which was always interesting and full of surprises.
I was probably the last of his friends to actually speak with him before he died. For some unknown reason I decided to ring him at home on Wednesday 16 January (not having seen him for a few weeks). A carer answered the 'phone and advised me Richard had admitted himself to the hospice again. Of course I rang him there immediately and he asked me to visit him ASAP because he had some personal matters he wished to discuss and to be recorded. That was about 4.30 in the afternoon.
Alas our meeting did not happen ... he died just after dawn the following morning.
Vale Tricky.
- Clarke Gerber
1Strictly speaking, a member of the re-formed Leonine Consort, as Clarke Gerber (1951-2010) pointed out in an email of 11 July 2005:
Contrary to popular belief, Charles Colman did not start the Leonines.
As correctly mentioned in Bridgwood's eulogy, Charles recreated the Leonines in 1978.
It was originally started by one Bob Donnelly in the early 1960s as a group from Sydney University. I don't know the original membership however when I first heard the group in 1967 Charles Colman had taken over.
The group disbanded and was reformed with Tricky in the tenor line in 1978.
2"Lawrence" in the original. Clarke Gerber, a member of the choir, picked this up:
The saint's name is Laurence, however the civil parish in which the church land is situated is "St Lawrence" ... so the correct title would be Christ Church St Laurence in the parish of St Lawrence Sydney!!
3Mistranscribed as "Coburn" in the original
4The nickname "Tricky Dicky" was an accident of history rather than a character description! Richard came to Canberra and joined SCUNA in 1970. Richard Nixon - and his nickname - was prominent around that time, so it was just one of those things. Richard Dixon was often also called "T.D."
5Monash University Choral Society. Richard also started out as a computer programmer with Customs, which is why he eventually came to Canberra
6"Doing a number"TM Rags - something that happens (not necessarily in funny clothes) at Choral Intervarsity revues (and SCUNA musicales)