service, he taught in primary, secondary modern and grammar schools. [3]This wide-ranging experience played a significant role in shaping his view that music should be at the heart of the curriculum. Academic career In 1962, Paynter began a long career in higher education. He was Lecturer in Music at the City of Liverpool C. F. Mott College of Education, from 196265 and Principal Lecturer at the Bishop Otter College in Chichester from 196569. He was appointed a Lecturer in the Department of Music at the University of York in 1969. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1974 and was appointed Professor in 1982. Between 1973 and 1982, he directed the Schools Council Project Music in the Secondary School Curriculum. The project gathered contributions from schools, produced documentary videos of pioneering good practice in a range of schools and culminated with a book with the same title (1982). Paynter was General Editor of the Resources of Music series for Cambridge University Press between 1969 and 1993. [4] He was Joint Editor of the British Journal of Music Education from 1984 to 1997. Professional recognition Paynter was appointed FRSA in 1987, Hon. GSM in 1985. He received the Leslie Boosey Award from the Royal Philharmonic Soc./PRS in 1998. He was appointed OBE in 1985. Commentary Paynter's compositions included chamber music, choral works and two children's operas, The Space Dragon of Galata (1978) and The Voyage of St Brendan (1979). Both works involved large forces, combining professional musicians and children in performance. Among teachers, Paynters best-known short piece is Autumn, a setting of a Japanese haiku for classroom performance.[5] Among Paynters music composed for adults, his choral settings of Gerard Manley Hopkins The Windhover, and God's Grandeur [6] are particularly striking in their sensitivity and response to the Christian meaning of Hopkins texts.[7] As an educator, Paynter's publication in 1970 of Sound and Silence had a seminal influence of the practice of classroom music teachers. Paynter was passionate in his conviction that that music was exciting for children to explore independently and that the subject could be approached in a multitude of different ways. While the public face of music education in schools tended to concentrate on instrumental learning and teacher-directed performances by choirs and orchestras, the book introduced teachers to ways of helping pupils to explore and make their own interpretive decisions about sounds through working at composing projects.[8] Paynters ideas influenced the development of music in the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) in the 1980s and in the British National Curriculum in the 1990s. [9] Composing became a core musical activity in both of these programmes of study._______________________________________________________________ ^ Guardian Obituary (http://guardian.co.uk/education/2010/aug/03/john-paynter-obituary) 3 August 2010^ Times Obituary, 23 July 2010.^ British Journal of Music Education 2011, Vol.28, No.1, pp11-26^ Times Obituary, 23 July 2010.^ A recording of Autumn performed by children from Heslington Primary School can be heard on http://found0bjects.blogspot.com/2010/09/john-paynter-autumn.html^ Guardian Obituary (http://guardian.co.uk/education/2010/aug/03/john-paynter-obituary) 3 August 2010^ Music Education Research Vol. 13, No. 1, March 2011, pp1-2^ British Journal of Music Education 2010, Vol.27, No.3, pp221-223^ Times Obituary, 23 July 2010. ______________________________________________________________