Web Page 3054 23rd March 2023 Steve Race First Picture: Steve Race at the piano

Second Picture: The My Music team

Third Picture: Sheet Music for Nicola

Forth Picture: Steve Races’ autobiography

Stephen Russell "Steve" Race OBE (1 April 1921 – 22 June 2009) was a British composer, pianist and radio and television presenter. Born in Lincoln, the son of a lawyer, he learned the piano from the age of five. He was educated (1932–37) at Lincoln School, where he formed his first jazz group, which included a young Neville Marriner, later a major figure in the world of classical music. At sixteen, he attended the Royal Academy of Music, studying composition. After leaving the academy, he wrote occasional dance band reviews for Melody Maker and, in 1939, joined the Harry Leader dance band as pianist, succeeding Norrie Paramor. He joined the Royal Air Force in 1941, and formed a jazz/dance quintet. After the Second World War, he began a long and productive career with the BBC, where his ready wit, musicianship and broad musical knowledge made him much sought after as a musical accompanist for panel games and magazine shows, such as Whirligig and Many a Slip. At the same time he was playing in the bands of Lew Stone and Cyril Stapleton, and arranging material for Ted Heath. In, 1949 The Steve Race Bop Group recorded some of the first British bebop records. He also developed a sideline arranging player piano rolls for the Artona company. From the 1950s to the 1980s, he presented numerous music programmes on radio and television. Additionally, in 1955, he was appointed the first Light Music Advisor to the independent television company Associated-Rediffusion. He is probably best known as the chairman of the long-running light-hearted radio and TV panel game My Music which ran from 1967 to 1994. He presented and wrote most of the questions for all 520 episodes . He also presented Jazz For Moderns on radio and Jazz 625 on television for the BBC in the 1960s. As a composer, he produced a number of pieces in the jazz, classical and popular idioms. Faraway Music, the theme to an ITV Play of the Week in 1961, was issued as a single by Steve Race and his Orchestra. Others followed, including one of his better-known compositions, the short instrumental piece Nicola (named after his daughter), which won an Ivor Novello Award in 1962. But his best-known and, according to his autobiography, his most lucrative composition is his music for the Birds Eye frozen peas jingle, "Sweet as the moment when the pod went pop". Windsor Blues, a duet written in 1970 for Prince Charles (cello) and the Earl of Chester (trumpet) has been recorded. Race's autobiography, Musician at Large, was published in 1979, and in 1988 Souvenir Press Ltd published his book about his grandfather's short but interesting life, from lead miner to missionary, entitled The Two Worlds of Joseph Race. He married Marjorie Leng in 1944 and they had a daughter, Nicola. Marjorie died from cancer in 1969. He married again in 1970, to radio producer Léonie Mather, who survived him. He had his first heart attack in 1965. He died of the second attack at his home in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, in June 2009. Stay in Touch Peter gsseditor@gmail.com