Jan Mentha (Chairman)

Jan has served the Society as a general committee member, Membership Secretary, and Treasurer. In October 2023 she was honoured to be appointed Chairman.

Jan’s involvement in light-music dates back to Knowsley Youth Orchestra in the mid to late 1970s where a typical programme might include Leroy Anderson, Richard Rodgers, Malcom Arnold, Edward Elgar and so on. At an impressionable age, this experience laid the foundations for her attitude to music: (1) there are only two types – good and bad; (2) generally, any group of players is better than the sum of its parts; (3) always play with complete sincerity and enthusiasm.

Skipping a couple of decades, as an “adult returner” to violin playing, Jan joined the Cambridge Concert Orchestra in 1997, and was soon persuaded to become its Librarian. The foundation of the CCO’s library lay with a donation of a large collection from Charles Shadwell and orchestral sets purchased from Arthur Anton. This gave Jan the opportunity to get some real hands-on involvement in light music. The CCO was a member of the Light Music Society, and it is around this time that she joined the LMS in her own right.

She has also been a member of the Robert Farnon Society (now meeting as the London Light Music Meetings Group), Billy Mayerl Society, the BBC Concert Orchestra Supporters Club, and is a founder of the Footloose Dance Orchestra.

Light music has been a constant theme through Jan’s life making many friends on the way, and it is through the Society she has had the privilege of playing violin/viola under the batons Gavin Sutherland, John Wilson and – unforgettably – Ernest Tomlinson at Longridge.