This obituary appeared in The Telegraph, October 10, 2005:

Eleanor Warren

Eleanor Warren, who has died aged 86, was a cellist, teacher and broadcaster who became a remarkable musical operator and a friend and confidante to generations of chamber musicians.

When the Hungarian violin-piano duo Gyorgy Pauk and Peter Frankl were looking for a trio partner in 1972 she introduced them to the Texan-born cellist, Ralph Kirshbaum.

Over the next 18 months they broadcast some 30 trios for the BBC - helped in no small part by Warren's position as a producer there.

Earlier she had spotted the potential of a bomb-damaged and deconsecrated church in Smith Square in central London as a venue for live broadcasts. Situated at the heart of the Westminster village, St John's is farther away from rail lines "underground or overground" than most London concert halls.

It also has a captive and influential audience. The live Monday lunchtime series from St John's ran from its inception in 1969, when the former church was rebuilt, until it moved to the Wigmore Hall a few years ago.

Warren's background was as a cellist but her forte was her imagination, particularly in bringing chamber music alive.

She played a key role in securing the Takacs Quartet's residency at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in the 1980s and 1990s, where she was Head of Chamber Music. Concurrently she held the title Chamber Music Director at the Royal College of Music.

Indeed, when it came to young musicians nothing was too much trouble. She sat on various selection panels and adjudication boards, offering more than just a verdict but also words of encouragement and support.

In recent years the Musicians Benevolvent Fund, Pierre Fournier Award and BBC Young Musician of the Year all benefited from her dedication and sympathetic commitment. The Royal Northern College of Music continues to offer an annual Eleanor Warren prize for salon music.

Eleanor Catherine Warren was born in London on June 15 1919. Her mother was a gifted amateur cellist from Germany. At the tender age of two she had apparently been fascinated by a violinist playing in a tea shop.

By five, and armed with an eighth-size cello, she was enrolled into the London Cello School at Nottingham Place, Baker Street, and soon befriended Zara Nelsova. They were both students of Professor Herbert Walenn, a major figure in the cello world, and by their teens Warren and Nelsova had met many of the most important musical figures of their day. In 1934 Warren was awarded the school's premier prize.

Gregor Piatigorsky introduced Warren to his agent, Harold Holt, who in early 1936 promoted her in a pair of concerts at the Wigmore Hall accompanied by Ernest Lush. After the second The Times's critic wrote that "everything was phrased with a suave beauty of tone, a truth of intonation and an ease of manner surprising in a young player at the beginning of her career".

More recitals followed, and in 1937 she joined the young and fashionable all-female Ebsworth String Quartet with the Ebsworth sisters (Eileen, first violin and Phyllis, viola) and Elizabeth Hunt (second violin).

Their average age was 22, and they turned many a head with their contrast to the usual staid, middle-aged, male image of quartets. Meanwhile, at the age of just 19, Warren had taken part in a memorable farewell concert for the Irish tenor John McCormack at the Royal Albert Hall. Also on the artist list that night were the pianists Betty Humby (later Lady Beecham) and Gerald Moore.

During the war the Ebsworth Quartet worked with CEMA, keeping morale boosted on the home front. From factories to air raid shelters, they played on.

Warren also took part in Myra Hess's series of concerts at the National Gallery, and there was the constant round of music clubs, and provincial engagements. In the postwar years she played with the English Chamber Orchestra, coached the cello section of the Essex Youth Orchestra, taught at Dartington and ran the chamber concerts when the Queen Elizabeth Hall opened in 1967.

When the Quartet disbanded in the 1950s Warren formed a trio with the violinist Yfrah Neaman and the pianist Lamar Crowson, but when a back injury forced her to abandon playing in 1964, she joined the BBC. She created the St John's series five years later.

Her reputation was reinforced with a series of young artists' recitals broadcast live from Broadcasting House and the close relationship she fostered between the BBC and the Leeds International Piano Competition, which in the early 1970s was beginning to make a name or itself with winners such as Radu Lupu, Murray Perahia and Dmitri Alexeev. She was appointed Head of Music Programmes, Radio, in 1975.

Gradually the BBC became too bureaucratic for her, and in 1977 she joined the Royal Northern College of Music as Head of Strings, where she remained for seven years before the lure of the London colleges became too strong.

She was delighted with life post-BBC. Indeed, when John Drummond left the corporation in 1977 for the Edinburgh Festival, she wrote him a reassuring note: "You may feel apprehensive after all these years in the BBC, but the water outside, if cool, is clean and fresh."

The creation of the triennial International Cello Festival at the College by Ralph Kirshbaum in 1988 thoroughly delighted her. Recently, Kirshbaum dedicated his performance at the Edinburgh International Festival with the Michelangelo String Quartet to her memory.

Eleanor Warren, who died on August 25, was appointed MBE in 1991.

She married the Czech-born conductor Walter Susskind in 1943. From 1946 to 1952 he directed the Scottish Orchestra. They divorced in 1953, and he died in 1980. She is survived by their son.