Composer · 1808 - 1849
Elias Parish-Alvars
Biography
Elias [Parish, Eli] Parish Alvars
(b Teignmouth, 28 Feb 1808; d Vienna, 25 Jan 1849). English harpist and composer.
He studied with François Dizi and also worked with Théodore Labarre in London. For some time in the 1820s he was employed by the harp manufacturers Schwieso and Grosjean at their Soho Square premises, where he may have met the shadowy figure known as A. Alvars, who dedicated a harp piece to Frederick Grosjean, and who may well be the person whose surname Eli Parish appears to have adopted; at the same time he changed his name from Eli to Elias. It is as Elias Parish Alvars that his name appears on his earliest published compositions (Artaria, 1836).