Neil Black
English oboist Neil Black was born in Birmingham on 28 May 1932, and began playing the oboe when he was eleven. He played in the National Youth Orchestra and studied history at Exeter College, Oxford.
Following private oboe studies with Terence MacDonagh, Black became principal oboist of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, later taking the same job with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, the English Chamber Orchestra and the London Mozart Players. He was a specialist in baroque and pre-classical repertoire, and a frequent soloist with chamber orchestras.
He taught at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and later at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He received an OBE in 1989, and from 2013 was musical director of the Kirckman Concert Society.
Neil Black died on 14 August 2016, aged eighty-four.