Osian Ellis

Osian Ellis occupied the principal harpist chair with the London Symphony Orchestra across several decades. This Welsh musician once characterized his outlook as "philosophical," explaining that a symphony harpist must adopt such a stance because much of the time passes while waiting in the wings. On the infrequent occasions when a solo spotlight appeared, it typically involved one of roughly six standard works, among them Franz Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz No. 1. Although that piece became one of Ellis’s specialties, his wide-ranging curiosity and reverence for the harp’s heritage produced a far more expansive career than mere idle anticipation. He maintained a close association with Benjamin Britten yet cultivated a repertoire reaching back to medieval British and Spanish sources as well as the indigenous harp traditions of Wales.

Ellis entered the world on February 8, 1928, in Ffynnongroew, Flintshire, Wales. His mother, an amateur harpist, prompted him to take up the instrument, and he first studied with Alwena Roberts before enrolling at the Royal Academy of Music under Gwendolen Mason. In 1959 Ellis succeeded Mason as harp professor at the Royal Academy. His tenure with the London Symphony commenced in 1961, not long after his initial collaboration with Britten began. During those years he played inventively, occasionally inserting his own improvisations within orchestral performances. When the Melos Ensemble was founded in London in the late 1960s, Ellis was the obvious selection for its harpist; the group specialized in seldom-heard works for larger chamber combinations, which for the harp meant the impressionist masterpieces of Ravel and Debussy.

Britten composed the Suite for Harp in 1969 after Ellis requested a solo piece from him, and the work received its premiere at that year’s Aldeburgh Festival. Between 1973 and 1980 Ellis toured extensively through America and Europe with tenor Sir Peter Pears, a partnership that encouraged numerous composers to offer songs to the pair. Britten contributed Canticle V and A Birthday Hansel during this interval, the latter written at the Queen’s specific request. Thereafter Ellis was frequently styled “the Queen’s harpist.” He continued the same practice by performing with his son Tomos, also a tenor, throughout the United Kingdom and abroad. Ellis and Britten further joined forces on the 1976 Eight Folk Song Arrangements, for which Ellis supplied both virtuoso harp accompaniments and English translations of Welsh texts.

Ellis remained on the Royal Academy faculty until 1989 and retired from the London Symphony in 1994. He tirelessly promoted the harp, leading multi-harp workshops and directing the Osian Ellis Harp Ensemble. In 1999 he conducted a twelve-harp ensemble at a special concert for the Florida International Festival, where photographs captured him practicing on the beach. Composers including Gian Carlo Menotti, William Schuman, and Alun Hoddinott wrote works for him, and he regularly performed excerpts from Jørgen Jersild’s harp pieces, many of which were dedicated to Ellis. After a distinguished teaching career he received an Honorary Fellowship from the University of Wales in 2000. His concise volume The History of the Harp in Wales appeared under the University of Wales Press imprint. Several full-length documentaries produced by British and Welsh broadcasters examined his life, the Welsh films dating from the outset of his professional journey.

Ellis eventually withdrew from performing to attend to his wife Rene, a violist to whom he had been married for more than sixty years. The couple had two sons, Richard and Tomos; Tomos passed away in 2009 and Rene in 2012. In 2018 the Wales International Harp Festival in Caernarfon presented a concert celebrating Ellis’s ninetieth birthday, an event that encouraged him to resume playing. He also returned to composition, resulting in Lachrymae for solo harp and Cylch o Alawon Gwerin Cymru (“A Circle of Welsh Folk Songs”), the latter created for bass-baritone Bryn Terfel and harpist Hannah Stone. Ellis died on January 5, 2021, at the age of ninety-two.