Marita Crawley

Marita Georgina Knight (née Phillips; formerly Crawley; born 28 May 1954 in London, England) is a British songwriter and author.[1][2]

Her lyrics have been recorded by artists such as Peter Skellern, Demis Roussos, William Lovelady and Art Garfunkel. She has written the libretto for the opera PUSHKIN, based on the lives of her great-great-great-grandfathers, Alexander Pushkin and Tsar Nicholas I of Russia; the music is by Konstantin Boyarsky. The opera was premiered in concert performance by Novaya Opera in Moscow on 4 February 2017.[3] Its world premiere as a staged performance was at Grange Park Opera in July 2018.

Marita Phillips studied acting at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama and ballet at the Nesta Brooking School before training as a mime with Adam Darius, with whom she founded and ran The Mime Centre, London.[4] She has written the book and lyrics for the children's musicals; The Dream Dealer and Buzz – the story of Glorybee. She has also written the novel The Dream Dealer.

Family

She is the fourth of five children of Lt.-Col. Harold Pedro Joseph Phillips (1909–1980) and his wife, Georgina Wernher (1919–2011),[5][6] who was the elder daughter and co-heiress of Sir Harold Wernher, 3rd Bt, by his wife Countess Anastasia de Torby (later Lady Zia Wernher, CBE).[1][5] Her eldest sister is Alexandra Hamilton, Duchess of Abercorn and her youngest sister is Natalia Grosvenor, Duchess of Westminster (a godmother of William, Prince of Wales). Marita and her siblings are close to the British royal family, being distantly related to both Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.[1][7]

In 1982, Marita married Randall Crawley (1950–1988), a son of Aidan Crawley MP and his wife Virginia Cowles, journalist and author. Randall Crawley was killed with his brother Andrew in a private plane crash near Turin in Italy on 10 September 1988,[8][9] leaving issue two sons and one daughter: Aidan Harold Winston Crawley (22 October 1983), Cosima Georgina Crawley (31 May 1985) and Galen Randall George Crawley (13 November 1988). The posthumous younger son Galen Crawley is a godson of Charles III.[10] In 2006, Marita remarried, to the journalist turned media baron Andrew Knight (born 1939).[1]

Siblings

References
  1. Lundy, Darryl. "p. 11283". The Peerage.
  2. "Center for Defense Information". Project On Government Oversight. Retrieved 14 July 2020.
  3. Macfarquhar, Neil (7 March 2017). "A Descendant's Daring Homage to Pushkin". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 8 July 2017.
  4. Darius, Adam (1984). The Adam Darius Method. London: Latonia. p. 12. ISBN 0-9502707-2-5.
  5. Willis, Daniel, The Descendants of King George I of Great Britain, Clearfield Co., Inc., Baltimore, Maryland, 2002, pp. 114, 601–602 ISBN 0-8063-5172-1.
  6. Dewar, Peter Beauclerk (2001). Burke' Landed Gentry of Great Britain: Together with Members of the Titled and non-Titled Contemporary Establishment (19 ed.). Burke's Peerage. ISBN 978-0-9711966-0-5.
  7. "London tribute to Amatu'l-Baha Ruhiyyih Khanum Rabbani honors her contributions to conservation and the arts | BWNS". Bahá’í World News Service. 15 June 2001. Retrieved 14 July 2020.
  8. Harriet Crawley, their sister, speaks about the Crawley Gap Year Scholarships in memory of her brothers. Retrieved 18 September 2007.
  9. " Ayer's adopted son dies" The Daily Telegraph, 2004. Harriet Crawley lost her husband Julian Ayer, adoptive son of the philosopher Freddie Ayer, in a Sri Lankan flood.
  10. "SMA Trust : fondation dédiée aux muscles". SmaTrust Muscu. Retrieved 14 July 2020.
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