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| FLORA MULLER DIES – AT NEARLY 106
AN AMAZING LADY
Miss Flora Muller, who had reached the marvellous age of over 105 and eleven months, died on Wednesday of last week at Downside Residential Home. Born on June 11th 1902 at West View, Zigzag Road (once a school and now an annexe to the Royal Hotel), Flora was one of the two daughters of Henry Muller, who was born in Zurich, Switzerland, and originally came to Ventnor to be a chef at the Royal. After holding similar positions, including those at The Metropole and in Bournemouth, in 1910 he and his wife Fanny took over the Freemasons Hotel (now St. Boniface Arms) and ran it for 33 years. Fanny, on coming to Ventnor pre 1900, was in charge of the Royal Hotel Tap, from where she was married. She died in 1943 and Henry then gave up the Hotel. He died in 1957, aged 85 and Flora’s sister Mrs. Frances (Fanny) Burdon, died in 1998. Flora attended Cyprus House School when it was in Newport Road (the part now Ocean View Road) and continued when it moved to Elsinore, Alpine Road.
TALES OF THE HOTEL
Flora used to tell me of different occasions when she helped her parents in the public house. She recalled that the cellar was reinforced to be used as a shelter in the 1939-45 War, but her mother would not use it. So during any air raids, they stayed in the bar and she said she could not remember any glasses being broken. In one particular raid, the ceilings came down on to the beds and she had to tell the soldiers who were billeted there that they would have to find alternative accommodation. She remembered when Guinness was threepence-halfpenny for a half-pint bottle and you could buy an ice-cream for a halfpenny!
EXCEPTIONAL MUSICAL CAREER
Initially, Flora commenced learning to play the piano, but changed to the violin, and so many audiences have been grateful because of the pleasure she gave them. When she was very young, comments on her performances at the Town Hall included: “Miss Muller’s dainty playing of Bavarian dances was marked by care and supreme confidence and shows she is on the high road to becoming a very artistic soloist.” She had already been frequently included in local orchestras, giving gratuitous help. Another report referred to her “unobtrusive musical talent being held in esteem by a wide circle of friends on the Island. She played with graceful perfection and sincerity of feeling.” Flora studied music under several tutors, including Eveline Petherick who frequently held concerts locally. Later she led orchestras for many Musical and Choral Societies’ performances. She was the leader of the original IW Symphony Orchestra formed before the 1939-45 War by Mr. E. English and she spoke of playing to crowds for hymn singing at Rylstone Gardens, Shanklin. Flora was leader of the Dunford String Orchestra and when the IW Symphony Orchestra was re-formed by Brian Northcott in the 1970s, she once again resumed leadership.. Finally giving up the violin when she was 89, she gave her music to the local Library’s collection.
...AND MORE MUSIC
Flora often recalled playing her violin at the Royal National Hospital, for community singing at the little theatre formerly on the Eastern Cliffs, for tea dances and many events. She said that when it was a wet day, the late Mr. A. J. Sharpe used to pick her and Mrs. Kenny up and take them to the Pier where she said: “We filled the Pavilion with music.” Flora also accompanied the silent movies at “The Cinema,” later “The Gaiety” in Grove Road, earning £3 a week in summer, thirty shillings in the winter, with two performances each evening and matinees on Wednesdays and Saturdays. When the Queen and Prince Philip visited Ventnor in 1965, Flora played her violin in the Park for them.
PROUD OF HER HARD WORKING LIFE
Flora told me that she had worked hard all through her life and would not have wanted it any other way. In the last war she was offered the use of a garden at The Orchard, St. Lawrence and she planted vegetables there. For years, she did part-time cleaning jobs for ‘locals’ she often called “her old ladies!” Long-standing residents will remember her busily serving at Walter Zuber’s popular Suisse Café in Spring Hill. “Two Coffees please” – or more! was her frequent message to the kitchen.
LATER IN LIFE
Flora thoroughly enjoyed her bus rides, particularly to her favourite places of Cowes and Yarmouth, and her coach holidays on the mainland. She loved talking to people, many of whom sent her cards at Christmas. She liked to talk about the past and to keep up with Ventnor’s happenings – changes in shops, buildings being demolished and replaced and people’s lives. Her memory was remarkable and our chats were always interesting. Flora was the oldest member of the Ventnor and District Local History Society and attended meetings and events until a few years ago. She was for many years a member of the Ventnor Horticultural Association, being a great lover of flowers.
THE LAST FEW YEARS
After having a fall at her long-time home “Caithness” in St. Boniface Road some eight years ago, she moved across the road to Downside Residential Home where she was very well cared for by the staff, who will really miss her, as I certainly will. Never interested in television, even before her sight became impaired, she regularly listened to music, plays and the news on her radio. In 2005 she was interviewed by John Hannam for IW Radio. Mrs. Maureen Cawley held birthday parties for Flora each year since her 99th birthday at “Elcombe” where friends offered their congratulations. I had given her a lift to the History Society meetings for many years, but when she was unable to continue, my weekly visits to the Home became a regular routine. I had known her for most of my life but a real friendship had kindled over more recent years, and we often laughed when I said I could not believe she was 30 years older than me! I am glad that I was privileged to share many moments in her extraordinarily long life.
Sympathy is extended to her niece, Mrs. Julia Muirhead of Swanage, and other relatives.
FAY HEWITT BROWN (2008-06-02)
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| Rhapsodic finale to concert season
The Isle of Wight Symphony Orchestra is delighted to welcome not one, but two soloists to their end-of-season concert, held at Medina Theatre on Saturday 14th of July.
The evening's music will begin with the overture from Candide, by Leonard Bernstein (of West Side Story fame).
The first soloist of the evening is local Flautist Siobhan Cosgrove. After studying at the Royal Academy of Music, Siobhan now teaches woodwind as a member of the Isle of Wight Music Service. The orchestra will be accompanying Siobhan in John Rutter's Suite Antique.
Three Dances from "The Three-Cornered Hat" bring the first half to a close; the dances being selected from a ballet by Manuel de Falla, originally produced in London by Diaghilev's Russian Ballet. The dances include instruments not often heard in an orchestra - a guitar, and castanets!
Making a welcome return to the Island is pianist Robert Scamardella. Former Young Musician of the Year finalist, and participating artist in the Countess of Munster Recital Scheme, Robert will be performing George Gershwin's famous Rhapsody in Blue - a piece originally conceived for solo piano and jazz-band, later expanded for full orchestra.
Completing the evening's music is left to Sir Charles Mackerras' Pineapple Poll ballet suite, the ever popular arrangement of some of Sir Arthur Sullivan's most famous tunes.
The concert begins at 7.15pm. Tickets are priced at £12.00 and £6.00 for under sixteen's (carers for wheelchair users get in free) and are available on the door or in advance from the Medina Theatre box office on 01983 527020.
Stephen Courtney (2007-07-09)
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| Audience Favourite Returns To Play All-time Piano Favourite
Julian Dyson stars at Medina Theatre in Schumann Piano Concerto
Anyone who experienced Julian Dyson's playing of the second piano concerto by Rachmaninov in November 2004 will never forget the experience.
Seldom has our Island been graced by a performer with such a natural talent and effortless expression in a work which might have been written for him. The audience on that night certainly thought so, because the applause lasted for over five minutes with numerous curtain calls.
Ever willing to give the local audience what they like, the Island's own orchestra again feature Julian on Saturday 29th January 2006, again at the Medina Theatre, this time in another audience favourite, the Piano Concerto in A minor by Robert Schumann.
Schumann wrote the first movement of the Piano Concerto in 1841 and it appeared as a self-contained work under the title Fantasia. The other two movements were added some years later.
Though the solo and orchestral parts are often closely interwoven, there is no doubt about the piano's predominance. It is a work in the true nineteenth-century style, designed to exhibit the interpretative and technical powers of the soloist.
Beautiful to play and to hear, it's small wonder then that twenty-five years later, Grieg took it as the model for his own piano concerto, even composing his in the same key.
At the age of eight Julian Dyson won a scholarship to the Yehudi Menuhin School where he studied under Simon Nicholls, Louis Kentner and Vlado Perlemuter. Whilst at the School he was a piano finalist in the BBC Young Musician of the Year and the Winner of ITV's Fanfare for Young Musicians.
In 1986 he was awarded a scholarship to the Royal College of Music to study Piano with Irina Zaritskaya and Accompaniment with Robert Sutherland. At college he won all the major prizes, graduated with honours in 1990 and in the same year Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother presented him with a special scholarship in Her name.
In 2000 he was appointed to the staff of the Yehudi Menuhin School where he teaches and accompanies.
The concert begins with an overture, Aurora, by William Lloyd-Webber (father of Julian and Sir Andrew), and concludes with a performance of Elgar’s 3rd Symphony, as realised and completed by Anthony Payne.
The concert begins at 7.15pm after a pre-concert talk beginning at 6.30pm. Tickets are priced at £12.00 and £6.00 for under sixteen’s (carers for wheelchair users get in free) and are available on the door or in advance from the Medina box office on 01983 527020.
Webmaster (2006-01-24)
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| Horn quartet's brilliant sounds to close Orchestra's season
There are those among the IWSO's loyal followers who may have wondered why they have only heard the orchestra play one piece by Robert Schumann in over twenty years.
Whatever the reason, this deficiency will be put right on Saturday 16th July 2005, when the Island’s own orchestra will feature Schumann's "Konzertstuck in F for Four Horns".
Not only will they play this gem of the early Romantic period, but they have also assembled a quartet of the country's leading professional horn players to fully do it justice.
Michael Thompson is internationally acknowledged as one of the worlds leading horn players. After studies at the Royal Academy of Music, he was appointed principal horn with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra at the age of eighteen.
Within three years he was principal horn of the Philharmonia Orchestra, where he stayed for ten years before leaving to concentrate on his solo and chamber music career.
Richard Clews, principal horn of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, began playing the horn at the age of ten. Richard has performed with the London Sinfonietta, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.
Martin Owen, principal horn of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, is widely regarded as one of the country's leading players appearing as guest principal horn with the major London orchestras, the Berlin Philharmonic and Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and also as soloist/chamber musician in some of the leading music festivals around the world.
Chris Davies started learning the horn aged 12. His playing career began in the West End and he spent several years at the London Palladium in the shows Joseph and Oliver as well as playing with the all the London orchestras. Chris is currently a member or the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden.
The second half of the concert features the Symphony in D by Cesar Franck. This important piece has established itself as a firm favourite with British audiences over the years by virtue of its warm melodies, rich harmony and brilliantly cheerful finale. A fitting end to an enthralling and superlative season.
The concert begins at 7.15pm. Tickets are priced at £12.00 and £6.00 for under sixteen’s (carers for wheelchair users get in free) and are available on the door or in advance from the Medina box office on 01983 527020.
Richard Scott (2005-07-05)
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| Symphony Orchestra's Season gets better and better
Regular listeners to the Isle of Wight Symphony Orchestra will agree that it has never been afraid to play repertoire that other orchestras sometimes overlook.
Orchestra Chairman Phillip Grainger says, "We have always tried to mix well-known pieces with items that our audience might not have come across before". "We try" he continues "to keep both audience and players engaged, which hopefully prevents us from constantly dishing up the same standard fare that other regional orchestras seem to do".
On Saturday 28th May 2005, the Island's own orchestra will continue in that vein by playing some little known British masterpieces together with one of the greatest Romantic symphonies.
Alan Rawsthorne's overture "Street Corner", a light and cheerful evocation of city life, opens proceedings to be followed by a recently discovered suite for strings by Gordon Jacob. Then follows a delightful and spirited guitar concerto, Herbert Chappell's "Caribbean Concerto".
This vibrant and tuneful little piece, to be played by Craig Ogden, one of the world's best guitarists, accurately portrays the moods and exuberances of carnival in the Caribbean.
Herbert Chappell, who wrote the piece whilst on holiday in Antigua in 1990 and who will be present at the performance, says "I wanted to add a piece to the repertoire that respects and actually rejoices in the instruments natural resonances; a piece that is challenging for the soloist, enjoyable for the orchestra and fun for the listener".
After the interval the orchestra will complete its survey of the major Tchaikovsky symphonies that it has undertaken over the past four years by playing his magnificent Fourth Symphony in F minor.
Soon after its first performance in St.Petersburg in February 1878, Tchaikovsky wrote to a friend that it was "the best thing that I have ever done" That the work has been a firm favourite in the repertoire ever since would suggest that music lovers all over the world agree with him.
The concert begins at 7.15pm. Tickets are priced at £12.00 and £6.00 for under sixteen's (carers for wheelchair users get in free) and are available on the door or in advance from the Medina box office on 01983 527020.
Philip Grainger (2005-06-15)
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| World famous guitar virtuoso Craig Ogden to star in Newport
On Saturday 28th May 2005 the Island's own orchestra will play host to a guitarist who is frequently considered to be a successor to the great Julian Bream.
Australian born guitarist Craig Ogden is one of the most exciting artists of his generation. He studied guitar from the age of seven and percussion from the age of thirteen.
His music degree (with honours) from the University of Western Australia was followed by the Royal Northern College of Music Professional Performance Diploma with Distinction; the college's highest award for performance.
One of the new generation's most prominent players, Craig Ogdens' performances have taken him throughout the UK, into Europe, the USA, South East Asia, South Africa and Australia in recital, on radio and on television.
His recordings for Nimbus, Hyperion, Collins Classics, Virgin, Sony and Chandos Records have received wide acclaim. BBC Music Magazine dubbed Ogden "a worthy successor to Julian Bream" and his debut solo CD for Nimbus Records of 20th Century Classics by British composers was nominated for a Grammy Award.
Craig Ogden made his Royal Albert Hall debut with the Philharmonia Orchestra performing Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez in a Classic FM Live concert. He has also performed concertos with the London Symphony, Royal Philharmonic and London Philharmonic Orchestras, as well as a host of distinguished orchestras in Europe, Australia and the Far East.
Craig Ogden regularly appears as soloist and chamber musician at the major London venues including the Purcell Room, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Wigmore Hall and the Barbican. He has also performed at most of the main UK festivals and is the most sought after guitarist for chamber music in the UK.
Craig Ogden has released seven recordings on the Chandos label. His recording of all three solo Rodrigo guitar concertos with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra was greeted with wide acclaim. Classic CD concluded this recording to be "one of the most winning performances I have encountered" whilst Rodrigo’s daughter wrote: "This recording has confirmed your position among the greatest guitarists".
Craig Ogden is married to British opera star Claire Bradshaw with whom he frequently appears in concert. Craig Ogden is Principal Lecturer in Guitar at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester and was recently honoured by the RNCM with a Fellowship.
Craig Ogden will perform the Herbert Chappell "Caribbean Concerto" with the Isle of Wight Symphony Orchestra in the presence of the composer.
The concert begins at 7.15pm. Tickets are priced at £12.00 and £6.00 for under sixteens (carers for wheelchair users get in free) and are available on the door or in advance from the Medina box office on 01983 527020. Regrettably Dr. Jack Jones is indisposed, so the orchestra are delighted to welcome John Lea to give the pre-concert talk on this occasion.
Phillip Grainger (2005-05-17)
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| Orchestra attracts yet another superstar to Medina Theatre
Internationally acclaimed virtuoso Yitkin Seow to play Brahms piano masterpiece.
On Saturday 5th March 2005 the Island’s own orchestra will continue their outstanding season when Yitkin Seow will play the awesome Brahms 2nd Piano Concerto at the Medina Theatre.
Born in Singapore, Yitkin Seow was invited to study in London by Sir Yehudi Menuhin when he was twelve and continued his studies with Nadia Boulanger and Vlado Perlemuter.
At the age of nineteen he embarked on his international career by winning the BBC Piano Competition, despite being the youngest contender.
This prestigious award led to his first appearance at the Royal Festival Hall with the Philharmonia Orchestra and a televised London Promenade Concert.
At the 1977 Piano Competition in Tel Aviv Arthur Rubinstein hailed his performance of the Brahms Paganini Variations as the "most wonderful" he had ever heard, and with the unanimous agreement of the jury gave him the Rubinstein Prize.
This unprecedented gesture exemplifies the level of public acclaim with which Yitkin Seow has been greeted at every stage of his career. He has played with some of the world's greatest conductors, from Sir Colin Davis to Sir Simon Rattle.
In the USA he partnered Sir Yehudi Menuhin at the Grand Teton Festival. At the 1982 London Proms he played the Tippett Concerto with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He made his Polish debut in 1984 with the Polish Chamber Orchestra under Jerzy Maksymiuk.
Yitkin has since made recordings of Satie, Schubert's Trout Quintet, and Grieg with the Philharmonia Orchestra. In 1993 he played at the Carnegie Hall in New York.
The Brahms concerto, which forms the whole of the second half of the concert, will be preceded by works by John Ireland and Delius, together with Dvorak's evocative tone poem The Water Goblin.
The concert begins at 7.15pm, following a pre-concert talk by Dr. Jack Jones. Tickets are priced at £12.00 and £6.00 for under sixteen's (carers for wheelchair users get in free) and are available on the door or in advance from the Medina box office on 01983 527020.
Phillip Grainger (Chairman) (2005-02-28)
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| Orchestra’s Stars continue to shine brightly
Menuhin pupil Melina Mandozzi to visit Newport for Saint-Saens concerto.
Any mention of Europe these days is sure to raise blood pressure one way or another. However, the latest European export to reach these shores will certainly get hearts pumping for all the right reasons.
On Saturday 22nd January 2005 the Island’s own orchestra continue their sparkling season when Melina Mandozzi will play Saint-Saen’s 3rd Violin Concerto at the Medina Theatre.
Melina Mandozzi was born in Locarno, Switzerland, into a family of musicians. She received her first violin lesson at the age of four from Suor Clara Lainati, later studying with Laurent Jaques and Jakob Schochetmann.
From 1984 until 1989 she was a student at the Yehudi Menuhin School in London where she was taught by Lord Menuhin, Margaret Norris, Felix Andrejewsky, Mauricio Fuks and Igor Ozim, as well as receiving chamber music coaching with Sidney Griller and Peter Norris.
At the age of twelve she gave her debut at the Royal Festival Hall with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and has since been performing throughout Europe as well as in the USA and Japan.
Notable concerts include New York (Carnegie Hall), Zürich (Tonhalle), Vienna (Musikverein, Konzerthaus and Bösendorfersaal), Moscow (Bolshoi-Saal and Rachmaninov-Saal), St.Petersburg (Philharmonie), Reims - with Yehudi Menuhin conducting, and Madrid (Sala Albeniz).
In 2003 she became Concertmaster of the Radio Symphony Orchestra in Vienna, and since 2004 Concertmaster of the Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra. Recently she was also invited to lead the London Symphony Orchestra.
The concert begins at 7.15pm, following a pre-concert talk by Dr. Jack Jones. Tickets are priced at £12.00 and £6.00 for under sixteen’s (carers for wheelchair users get in free) and are available on the door or in advance from the Medina box office on 01983 527020.
Philip Grainger (2005-01-09)
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