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Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Although the authority control links all say that Joseph Ward was born in 1942 (some adding the date 22 May), these all appear to derive from the International Who's who in Music and Musicians' Directory by David M. Cumming. I have good reason to believe that his birth year is in fact 1932, and not only because that is the year provided by the AFAIK very reliable Oxford Concise Dictionary of Music (raising the possibility that 1942 is a typo of '4' instead of '3'). Though I have been unable so far to find a DOB from a third secondary source (as opposed to tertiary), it is known that Ward sang the leading role of Billy Budd when its revised definitive version was first broadcast by the BBC in 1960. Britten was directly involved in this performance, and it is extremely unlikely that an 18-year-old baritone's voice would have been at all ready for such a demanding role, whereas someone who was 28 would have been the ideal age. There is, btw, photo taken of Ward with Britten and Pears on the occasion of that broadcast, published on the BBC Radio 4 site, albeit they have clearly misidentified Ward as being between Britten and Pears, when in fact he's the man on the far right. Alfietucker (talk) 13:19, 26 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
