John Parry (18^th February 1776–8^th April 1851)

Welsh composer and instrumentalist.

Parry began his career playing the clarinet in his parish church (although a popular tale has it that his first instrument was a self–made pipe which he made out of a piece of cane) before moving on to the Denbighshire militia band in 1793 where he became master in 1797. He soon famous for his mastery of many different instruments, particularly the harp, piano and violin as well the flageolet, for which he would become famous. He led the band until 1807 when he he turned to flagoelet-playing, giving concerts in Rochester and then on the stage of Covent Garden, in a show arranged by the actor Thomas Dibdin. Here he played All's Well on two English flageolets set in a frame and Viva Tutte on three. It is not know whether William Bainbridge was present at the first performance of this show but the two men met around this time and the first of Bainbridge's Double Flageolets appeared in the same year. The influence of Parry was therefore extremely important in the development of this instrument. In return, Parry appears to have benefited from the popularity for the new instrument, of which he was the first teacher and professional player, and he spent the next nine years playing and teaching. From 1814 he returned to composing, writing many popular operas, operettas and ballads for Vauxhall Gardens and returned to conducting and organising cymrodorions and eisteddfods (Welsh folk festivals) which suggests a declining interest in the instrument which made him famous. His son John Orlando Parry (1810–1879) continued his father's work on Welsh folk music.

Two portraits of John Parry exist in the National Portrait Gallery, one by Abraham Wivell (1830) and the other by Harry Furniss.