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Graham Wells, Jeremy Montagu (1927–2020), Early Music, Volume 49, Issue 1, February 2021, Pages 166–167, https://doi.org/10.1093/em/caab017
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There can be no doubting that Jeremy Montagu was a towering figure in the field of Organology, both concerning Western and ethnological instruments. He may not have aspired to either a professorship or even a doctorate, but in different circumstances would surely have merited both.
Jeremy was born in London to Ewen and Iris Montagu. His father was a barrister. He was educated at Gordonstoun during the period in World War II when the school was evacuated to mid-Wales, spending only one term at their permanent site near Elgin. While there his interest in music began. He learned first the baritone and then the horn. Not long after leaving Gordonstoun he was called up for national service. Initially serving in the Royal Artillery, he later transferred to the Royal Army Education Corps—eventually being posted to Egypt, where his interest in ethnomusicology was first aroused. On being demobbed he went up to Cambridge ostensibly to read economics, but ended up spending most of his time playing music and conducting. Abandoning economics, he was offered a place at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Initially the horn was his primary study, but conducting (under Norman Del Mar) and percussion (under James Blades) eventually took over. It was while there that a small group of fellow students came together which was later to turn professional as the Montagu String Orchestra, which was only finally disbanded in 1956. Meanwhile he was fully occupied as a freelance percussionist and conductor covering a very broad range of music, mostly classical but even including pantomime.
