When she said she was a concert pianist, he didn't believe her, so she invited him home to Roseville and played for him. He took a fancy to her and asked her about herself. Towards the end of her 20s, she was playing recitals to raise money to study overseas, but when the war started, she gave her proceeds to the war fund and gave aid concerts.Īlso during the war, in 1942, she met William Hunstead, a Norwegian skiing instructor, at the Sydney Glaciarium ice-skating rink. In her early 20s, she became the accompanist for the original Sydney String Quartet, and toured Queensland as the principal artist and accompanist for the opera singer Molly de Gunst and cellist Jules van der Klei.Īt 28, she was awarded the teacher's diploma from the Conservatorium and won the ABC Radio Eisteddfod (the equivalent of today's Young Performer awards) for best soloist. Over the next few years, she gave concert recitals and radio broadcasts and critics were calling her one of the finest pianists in Australia. #Australian piano prodigy fullAt 17, she gave her first full public recital at the Conservatorium and later that year was the then-youngest person in NSW to take a performer's diploma. She started at the Sydney Conservatorium high school in 1922 and in 1925 won a £50 scholarship from the Australian Music Examination Board for further study there. In fact, she won every competition she entered. She continued entering piano competitions and by 14 had won 20 medals for piano and theory, eight of them from the Trinity College of Music in London. At 10, she won the champion piano gold medal for all-comers at the Sydney Eisteddfod, beating adult competitors. She grew up in Roseville and started playing the piano at three, taught by a great-aunt, and her talent was soon recognised.Īt eight, she won first prize in the 16 and under piano solo section at the Drummoyne Eisteddfod. Waller Roberts, an engineer, and his wife, Selina Derbyshire, an artist. Viola Dagmar Roberts was born in Sydney on September 11, 1910, the second daughter of J. By the time the war was over, she had a young family and turned instead to teaching. She spent her youth winning prizes and awards and being hailed as a great talent but World War II prevented her from further study in Europe. To her, playing the piano was just something she could do. When she was very young, Dagmar Hunstead was recognised as a child prodigy, although she didn't realise this herself until she was in 80 and looking back on her life.
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