John Kennedy

John Kennedy (30 December 19229 February 1980) was a British cellist who had significant associations with Australia, where he worked in the latter part of his life and where he died. He was the father of the violinist Nigel Kennedy.

John Kennedy was born in London. His parents were Australians, the cellist Lauri Kennedy and the pianist Dorothy Kennedy. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music (RAM).

He taught at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music for two years and appeared in concerts for Musica Viva Australia. In 1952, he toured New Zealand as part of the Llewellyn-Kennedy Piano Trio with the violinist Ernest Llewellyn and the pianist Scylla Stoner - who was billed as "Scylla Kennedy", John's first wife.

He returned to the UK, where he was principal cello at Covent Garden.

He returned to Australia as senior cello lecturer at the University of Melbourne Conservatorium. John and Nigel Kennedy did not meet until Nigel was 11. John married the Welsh soprano Joan Dargavel, and had more children (Nigel's half-siblings), including the bassist Debbie Kennedy and the cellist Laurien Kennedy, who won the 1978 ABC Young Performers Award. John and Joan divorced in 1975. He had a fourth child in 1976, violinist, Erica Kennedy (1st violinist in the Flinders String Quartet). He continued teaching, playing, and broadcasting in Australia until he retired in 1979 due to ill health.

John Kennedy died of chronic liver disease in 1980, at Box Hill, Melbourne.