Alexander Faris

Samuel Alexander "Sandy" Faris (11 June 1921 – 28 September 2015) was a Northern Irish composer, conductor and writer, known for his television theme tunes, including the theme music for the 1970s TV series Upstairs, Downstairs. He composed and recorded many operas and musicals, and also composed film scores (including for Georgy Girl) and orchestral works. As a conductor, he was especially known for his revivals of Jacques Offenbach and Gilbert and Sullivan operettas.

Early life and career Faris was born in Caledon, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, the third of the four children of George Faris, a Presbyterian minister, and his wife Grace (née Acheson), a schoolteacher. His aunt was the sculptor Anne Acheson. His father died of pernicious anaemia when he was a toddler, and his mother moved the family to Belfast, where she became headmistress of Victoria College girls' school. His mother noticed his musical aptitude, and he was given piano lessons. He was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and won a Kitchener Scholarship to study music at Christ Church, Oxford. In the 1950s, he served as the musical director for Carl Rosa and conducted for the Royal Ballet. In between, in 1956 he was given a Commonwealth Fund fellowship to study in New York at the Juilliard School. Back in London, he was musical director, in 1959, for the European premiere of Candide by Leonard Bernstein. In 1960, with Sadler's Wells Opera, he and director Wendy Toye helped to revive interest in the operettas of Jacques Offenbach, beginning with their much-revived production of Orpheus in the Underworld, followed in 1961 by La Vie parisienne. Other operas that he conducted at Sadler's Wells included Madam Butterfly in 1966. He conducted Carl Davis's television opera The Arrangement in 1965.

Gilbert and Sullivan and later years Faris played Katisha in a school production of The Mikado, Four years later, with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in Glasgow, he conducted ten Sullivan overtures (Nimbus CD, NI 5066).

Other West End credits included Robert and Elizabeth (Lyric Theatre, 1964), The Great Waltz and Billy (both at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, 1970 and 1974), Bar Mitzvah Boy (Her Majesty's Theatre, 1978) and Oklahoma! (Palace Theatre, 1980). Wings (1977), Fanny by Gaslight (1981), and Upstairs, Downstairs (1971), his most enduring composition. it won Faris an Ivor Novello Award in 1976 for the Best Theme from TV or Radio, and "83 different versions were played" on the programme by 2010. He also wrote "What Are We Going to Do With Uncle Arthur?", with lyrics by Alfred Shaughnessy, the Upstairs, Downstairs script editor, and "With Every Passing Day", with lyrics by Benny Green. His other compositions include the song "A Century of Micks" for the choir of the Irish Guards, the orchestral work Sketches of Regency England and the operetta R Loves J (Chichester Festival, 1973, based on Peter Ustinov's Romanoff and Juliet).

Faris died in 2015 at age 94. He was unmarried, and his closest survivors were four nephews and a niece.

Publications 1980. Jacques Offenbach (London: Faber & Faber, ) 2009. Da Capo Al Fine: A Life in Music (Matador, )