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Born in 1952, Peter Youngs learned the violin with Stan Philips at Primary School in Oulton Broad, Lowestoft. Music was of big part of his life, and he went on to study Music and History at University. After graduating he went into teaching, firstly at the Dragon School in Oxford and subsequently returning to Lowestoft to teach in the music service. He was keen for children to have the same chance to learn music as he had himself and at the time of his death had been saving in order to start his own music school in Lowestoft. The money he had raised was put into the Peter Youngs Memorial Trust to be used to fund pupils who needed help buying an instrument or funding lessons.
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Alongside teaching Peter had a busy social life. He was a well-known in orchestras across Suffolk. In those days, choral societies regularly used an orchestra to accompany their performances and Peter was a very able leader. He enjoyed his food and would rate the post-rehearsal tea according to the quality of the chocolate cake, known unofficially as the PY ratings!
Peter was organist at his local church in Melton. He organised the Summer Light Music Concerts, where many of Peter’s musician friends across the generations, would perform Light Music in a range of venues. Peter welcomed people to his home before and after concerts: proper community music making. An unassuming musician, Peter was on the lookout for musicians coming to the area who could be included in one of his many ensembles.
Peter accompanied the Lowestoft Suzuki group with a lightness of touch and taught several advanced members of the group. For a long time, he was conductor of the North Suffolk Youth Orchestra, and it went from strength to strength. He was a natural on the piano and enjoyed keeping people on their toes by playing an introduction in the wrong key only to cleverly modulate to the correct key just in time! In addition, Peter was leader and string fixer for Waveney Sinfonia, occasionally taking a rehearsal as conductor.
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A keen cyclist, Peter would often travel long distances. His trip from Melton to Lowestoft in time for work at 9 o’clock was not unusual. It was a great tragedy that Peter was killed in a road accident at only 35 years old. If things had been different, one can only imagine the
​huge impact Peter would have continued to have on the musical life of Suffolk.
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The Peter Youngs Memorial Trust was formed in Peter's memory to relieve deserving musicians, up to 21 years of age from the former Waveney District Council, who are in need of financial assistance, by assisting with costs of musical activity. SMART is honoured that PYMT's board have agreed that the funds and assets generated by PYMT have been transferred to SMART to award as a ringfenced fund in line with the PYMT objective.