Clive Carey

Biography

Clive Carey entered the world in 1883 in Sible Hedingham, Essex. He began his musical path as a chorister at King’s College, Cambridge, later attended Sherborne School, and in 1901 became an Organ Scholar at Clare College. A Grove Scholarship in Composition took him to the Royal College of Music, where he studied composition under Sir Charles Villiers Stanford and singing with James H. Ley. He then refined his craft further with Jean de Reszke in Paris and Nice.

His London debut came in 1907 with a song recital that drew immediate notice; The Times praised his baritone voice, noting its wide range and appealing timbre, produced with uncommon ease and confidence, and remarked that his choice of songs was refreshingly off the beaten path. In December 1911, he both produced and performed the role of Papageno in Mozart’s The Magic Flute at Cambridge, marking the first use of Edward J. Dent’s English translation.

He went on to appear in numerous other operas. That same year, Carey began collecting English folk songs in Sussex alongside Dorothy Marshall, later expanding his work to Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire. World War I largely halted his musical pursuits; he served as a ward orderly in the Medical Corps in France, among other roles, though he did publish Ten English Folk Songs in 1915. That year he also started work on The Starlight Express, but the commission ultimately went to Sir Edward Elgar.

After the war, he joined Rutland Boughton’s performances at Glastonbury. From 1920 to 1924, based at the Old Vic Theatre, he produced and sang in The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute in 1920, and Don Giovanni in 1921. He also toured Britain and Europe as part of the vocal sextet The English Singers. Later, Carey became a singing teacher at the Royal College of Music, where over decades until his death in 1968 his students included Edith Coates, Rita Hunter, Arnold Matters, Elsie Morison, Margaret Nisbett, John Noble, Alberto Remedios, Betty Roe, Eric Shilling, Joan Sutherland, Ava June, and David Ward.