John and Connie Suter
(a tribute by William Gould, Webmaster, Goldsmiths Choral Union)
In any organisation there are certain individuals that somehow define the character of the whole group. Two such people were John and Connie Suter, whose deaths in 2004, barely ten months apart, marked the close of an era in the annals of Goldsmiths Choral Union. Their warm, friendly personalities, reinforced (it must be said) with a no-nonsense attitude that let you know they would not suffer fools gladly, made them stand out in the choir but also seemed to help GCU to project itself as a warm, friendly bunch of singers.
Connie, born in June 1920, joined the choir first. She was an 18-year-old student, just starting out on her training as a teacher at Goldsmiths' College, when she joined Frederick Haggis’s evening class there in 1938. In those days, Connie was a soprano, but as the years rolled by, she eventually joined the ranks of the altos. Her musicianship was considerable. So much so, in fact, that she at least once acted as a page-turner for the organist Christopher Bowers-Broadbent at a GCU carol concert. Soprano Jenny Garrett recalls: “Connie was faced not with some showpiece by Widor or Lefebure-Wely: that would have been bad enough. What Chris actually played on this occasion was something by Charles Ives.” Needless to say, Connie got through it without any noticeable mishaps.
I shall always remember Connie as she was during her heyday at GCU. When I first joined the choir in 1978, Connie was still in her prime, a leading light of the alto section and an “elder stateswoman” of GCU who still found time to be kind to newbies like me. Although she had an incisive, no-nonsense personality, she was never intimidating to people she liked. My wife Tessa, for several years a GCU soprano, fondly remembers starting the sale of choir sandwiches with Connie, a venture that still brings in at least £1,000 a year to choir funds even though it has long since passed to other hands. I for my part will always remember Connie’s generosity of spirit and her profound common sense.
Connie met her husband-to-be, John Suter, at the height of the war. John, born in January 1922, came of a family with Swiss connections, which ran a company importing and processing shellac. He joined Goldsmiths Choral Union in 1943, but it was not until 1944 that he and Connie became what we would now call “an item”. Shortly before his death, John described to me how it came about. “It was just after a performance of Messiah at the Royal Albert Hall. Some of us were looking for somewhere to have a drink, so I led them all off into Imperial College, where I fancied we could get one. We were all in a crowd and I spotted Connie. She had a very attractive smile, I remember. I asked if I could see her again and one thing led to another.” The pair were married about two years after the end of the war, in 1947. John, a stalwart of the bass section, was a bluff character who loved rugby union as much as he did music. As a member of GCU, he was proud of having performed Messiah over 40 times (or was it 50?).
The Suters lived first in Chingford, then Buckhurst Hill, and finally Loughton, Essex. Their choir membership was interrupted briefly by an extended stay in Switzerland on business, but upon their return they rejoined GCU and continued as fully committed members right up to the 1990s. At Buckhurst Hill, they hosted many memorable summer socials. They introduced two of their children, Alison and Kate, into the choir. Small wonder, then, that the Suters became something of a GCU institution.
In 1996, Connie’s health began to deteriorate, and she and John retired from GCU. They had by then moved to Duxford, near Cambridge, where there were fewer stairs than there were at their Loughton home and they could be near Alison. They continued to come to concerts whenever they could. Connie died on 5 January 2004, aged 83. The bereavement was a devastating blow to John especially, and it was particularly poignant that he died so soon after her. His death came at the age of 82 on 17 November 2004 as a result of pneumonia and the effects of a minor road accident. Both these wonderful people will be greatly missed. The choir cherishes their memory and is honoured that they form such an integral part of GCU's history.
