My stepfather, Ian Macpherson, who has died aged 84, was still a student at the Royal Academy of Music in London when he graduated from the role of pianist and assistant to be musical director of a West End musical - Share My Lettuce – in 1958. This set his career trajectory, and he subsequently conducted many more West End shows from the early 1960s through to the 90s, including: Divorce Me Darling (ironically there he met my mother, the actor Vicky Clayton, both of them married to another at the time), Matchgirls, Two Cities, Promises, Promises, Thomas and the King, I Do! I Do!, Privates on Parade, Annie and Song and Dance.
In addition he both orchestrated and conducted Kiss Me Kate and Poppy (for the Royal Shakespeare Company) and Pickwick - gaining musical arranger and orchestrator credits on musicals including Windy City, Pinocchio, Metropolis, Oh Kay!, Rage of the Heart, Scrooge and Sherlock Holmes. Meanwhile he maintained his keyboard excellence - it is Ian’s celeste-playing on the song Truly Scrumptious on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’s film soundtrack.
“Just a wee boy from Kilmarnock”, Ian was the elder son of the tenor Andrew Macpherson and his wife Agnes (nee Ross). When his father joined the London Opera Company, the family moved to Finchley.
Musical upbringing and discipline absorbed (not least because he provided his father with an accompanist on tap) Ian went on to train in piano and composition at the Royal Academy of Music, winning a prize for best pianist in his final year (1959).
In concert and on record, Ian’s intuitive, supportive skills as accompanist or musical director were appreciated by numerous singing artists and notably he was called up to deputise for the indisposed pianist to accompany Frank Sinatra in concert at the London Arena in 1990.
Ian composed and arranged music for film, TV, commercials and library music. His original stage work, Castaway, based on the story of Robinson Crusoe (with lyrics by Peter Reeves) was staged in 1988. His Scottish Fantasy was premiered at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh by the Lothian Region Schools Wind Band in 1995 and is published (by Samuel King), as is his Lauderdale Suite (by Valentine Music Group).
Additionally, Ian orchestrated film scores and scored concert pieces for, among others, Nigel Hess, and arranged orchestral pieces performed by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under Carl Davis.
Before a recent significant period of ill health, an elegant career bookending had brought Ian back to his beloved RAM in 2000 to tutor students of orchestration, and became a proud associate of the academy in 2006.
Ian is survived by Vicky, me and my daughters, Anna and Grace.
