My father, Owen Wynne, who has died aged 89, was a celebrated countertenor committed to keeping alive the music of earlier ages and making it accessible to as wide an audience as possible.
He was born and bred in Liverpool, with Welsh ancestry, son of Lydia (nee Griffiths), a milliner, and Trevor Wynne, a wool cloth salesman, and went to Oulton school. He discovered choral singing as a choirboy at All Hallows parish church, Allerton.
It was a chance meeting with the comedian Tommy Cooper in Homs, Syria, during his national service (1944-47) that encouraged him to pursue a career as a singer. He took Cooper’s advice to join the Entertainments National Service Association (Ensa).
He later obtained a position as a lay clerk in Manchester cathedral choir, where he stayed for the next 35 years. In the early 1950s he launched the first of many collaborations focusing on early music – the Northern Consort, performing at country houses, churches and music festivals. They also gave numerous radio broadcasts. Other groupings followed, including the Lydian Ensemble, the Philharmonica of Manchester and later still the Tapestry of Music, where his focus shifted to early medieval composers.
Despite this considerable success, Owen returned to school at the age of 35, enrolling at the Royal Manchester College of Music (now the Royal Northern College of Music) to study voice. A self-confessed poor student of theory, he nonetheless won the Curtis Gold medal for singing and was then able to augment his performing career with teaching.
In addition to a portfolio of college positions and private pupils he later took on responsibility for the Trafford schools music centres, devoting every term-time Saturday for more than 20 years to ensuring schoolchildren in the borough had access to practical music training.
Owen never retired, but carried on teaching and created the Owen Wynne Chorale, a group of friends and former pupils performing regularly in the Greater Manchester area. His passion for music was perhaps equalled only by his love of humour. Always with a joke on his lips, he loved to laugh and to make others laugh.
He is survived by his wife, Dorothy, his five children, Simon, Sarah, Dave, Jules and me, seven grandchildren and a great-grandson.
