Nelly Ben-Or

Nelly Ben-Or in 2008

Nelly Nechama Ben-Or, also known as Nelly Ben-Or Clynes, was born in 1933 in Lwow in Poland. She is an international concert pianist and a Professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where she has taught the piano and the Alexander Technique since 1975. She is also a Holocaust survivor.

The Holocaust

During the war her family was imprisoned in a ghetto that they later fled from. Her mother, sister and Nelly herself managed to escape, but it was too late for her father. When they obtained false identities, she was separated from her sister, who went into hiding and found employment as a domestic servant, Ben-Or and her mother pretended to be Roman Catholics and travelled to Warsaw, where her mother worked for a Christian family for a year as a maid. Having missed the last passenger train to Warsaw, they were placed by the German station master on a train reserved for German Army officers. The family in Warsaw paid for Ben-Or to have piano lessons along with their own daughter, after hearing her play. Occasionally, when people suspected they were Jews, they would be forced to move on, but managed to escape.[1] They were reunited with the sister after the war. She kept the name in her false identity, Nelly Ben-Or.

Ben-Or frequently gives talks about her experiences during the Holocaust and shares her knowledge with local groups.[2]

Musician

A distinguished pianist, and a senior Alexander Technique teacher (in 1963 she became the first pianist to qualify as a teacher of the Alexander Technique), Ben-Or is internationally acknowledged as being the leading exponent of the application of the Alexander Technique to piano playing, in which field she has specialised for more than thirty-five years. She gives master classes on the technique to pianists in many countries throughout the world.[3]

She has performed in concerts and broadcasts throughout the world, in recitals, with orchestra and in chamber music. Ben-Or has made numerous commercial and broadcast recordings, including for the BBC. These recordings cover music by a wide range of composers from the 18th to the 20th centuries.[4]

Moving to England in 1960, she met and married her English husband and later moved to Northwood in London.

In 1999, the Nelly Ben-Or Scholarship Trust was established, whose patron is Sir Colin Davis.[4]

References

  1. ↑ Nelly Ben-Or Clynes Story. Pub. by Northwood and Pinner Synagogue (2008)
  2. ↑ The Enfield Independent January 28 2007
  3. ↑ Piano Courses and The Alexander Technique
  4. 1 2 Guildhall School of Music and Drama: Department of Piano Studies
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