Thea King

Dame Thea King DBE FRCM FGSM (26 December 1925 – 26 June 2007) was a British clarinettist.

Biography

Early life Thea King was born in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, the daughter of Henry Walter Mayer King, the manager of his family engineering business, and Dorothea (née Hass). She was educated at Bedford High School and won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music where she studied the piano with Arthur Alexander and the clarinet with Frederick Thurston. In January 1953 she married Frederick Thurston but he died from lung cancer in December of the same year. She never remarried. and Gordon Jacob's Mini Concerto.

From 1961 to 1987, she was Professor of Clarinet at the Royal College of Music and she was a professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama from 1988 until her death. She was a Fellow of both institutions.

Thea King was made an OBE in 1985 and was appointed a DBE in 2001.