Olive Zorian

Olive Nevart Zorian (16 March 1916 in Manchester – 17 May 1965 in London) was an English classical violinist.

She was the daughter of Samuel Hovannes Zorian (1870–1955) and Ada Mary Zorian (died 1965). Samuel was an Armenian hosiery manufacturer and musician who had been imprisoned by the Turkish authorities in the 1890s as a political activist, and who thereafter relocated to Manchester, England.

From 1932, she studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music under Arthur Catterall, funded first by a scholarship from the College and later by one from Lancashire County Council. She continued her studies at the Royal Academy of Music. In 1937, she was awarded as student prize a violin bow made by J & A Beare. Also in 1937, a string quartet which consisted of her (violin I), Marjorie Lavers (violin II), Susan Davies (viola) and Vivian Joseph (cello) won the Sir Edward Cooper Prize for ensemble playing.

In 1938, she was leader (concertmaster) of an orchestra assembled by Rudolph Dolmetsch (1906–42).

She performed five times as soloist at The Proms, in London, 1940–47. In one of those performances, in 1943, she gave the first performance in England of Saudade for violin and orchestra by South African composer Arnold van Wyk (1916–83).

In 1942, she founded the Zorian String Quartet, in which she played first violin. The other founding members were Marjorie Lavers (violin II), Winifred Copperwheat (1905–76, viola) and Norina Semino (cello). The quartet gave the premiere performances of, and made the first recordings of, several string quartets by English composers, including Benjamin Britten and Michael Tippett, and gave the English premieres of others.

She was leader of the English Opera Group Orchestra 1952–57. She was a member of the Julian Bream Consort. She made recordings with both those groups as well as with the Zorian Quartet. In 1961, she was leader of the Hoffnung Symphony Orchestra at the Hoffnung Astronautical Music Festival.

In 1948, she married broadcaster and classical music critic John Amis (1922–2013). The marriage was dissolved in 1955. She died of cancer in hospital in London in 1965. Her grave is in Southern Cemetery, Manchester. Her name is inscribed in the Book of Remembrance in the Musicians’ Chapel at St Sepulchre-without-Newgate, London.

Shortly after her death, the Royal Manchester College of Music set up a fund in her name to buy her 1721 Gagliano violin, which had previously belonged to her teacher Arthur Catterall, for the use of talented students. Two concerts in November 1966 (the first in London, featuring Benjamin Britten, Peter Pears, Julian Bream, Helen Watts, Manoug Parikian and Norman Del Mar; the second in Manchester, featuring John Ogdon and his wife Brenda Lucas, Elizabeth Harwood, Rodney Friend and Isobel Flinn) raised more than the necessary amount. The instrument was stolen in 1969 and has not been recovered.

In 1985, her former husband John Amis wrote, in his autobiography Amiscellany:

Olive's own playing was not virtuosic, though she could most capably negotiate things like Mozart concertos, the first fiddle-parts of Britten, Bartók and Tippett, as well as Stravinsky's Duo Concertant. Her strongest point was her instinctive musicianship and, above all, her ability to float and spin a line. You can hear the best of her in the old 78 rpm recordings of Britten [namely, his Second String Quartet] and Tippett Second String Quartets and, on LP, the original recordings of Britten's Saint Nicolas and The Turn of the Screw.