Fanny Waterman

Dame Fanny Waterman, DBE (born 22 March 1920) is a piano teacher, and the founder, Chairman and Artistic Director of the Leeds International Pianoforte Competition. She is also president of the Harrogate International Music Festival and a Patron of The Purcell School for Young Musicians.[1]

Life

Waterman was born in Leeds; her father, Myer Waterman, a Russian Jew, had emigrated to England to work as a jeweller. She began to study with Tobias Matthay when she was 17; she started giving public performances, and in 1941 opened the concert season in Leeds with the Leeds Symphony Society. She won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music and studied under Cyril Smith. In 1944, she married Dr. Geoffrey de Keyser and in 1950, with the arrival of her first child, gave up her concert career and concentrated on teaching. Her son Paul de Keyser also became a musician and music author.[2] By the early 1960s, Waterman felt that young British pianists needed a goal to give them a competitive edge with overseas pianists.

In 1961, jointly with her friend Marion, Countess of Harewood (later Marion Thorpe) and Roslyn Lyons, she founded the Leeds International Pianoforte Competition. She is Artistic Director of the competition and, since 1981, chairman of the competition jury. Her contribution to the city of Leeds was recognised in April 2006, when she was given the Freedom of the City of Leeds.

Waterman was Director of the Postgraduate Certificate in Advanced Piano Performance at Leeds College of Music until 2006.

She was the guest for BBC Radio Four's Desert Island Discs in July 2010. Although then aged 90, she was still teaching masterclasses and continued to be involved with every detail of the Leeds competition. "They call me Field Marshal Fanny" she said, "I am a busy breeches."[3]

Waterman has been the Honorary President of the Harrogate International Festivals since 2009.[4]

She turned 100 in March 2020.[5]

Honours

Waterman was appointed OBE in 1971, CBE in 2001 and DBE in the 2005 New Year Honours. She was also awarded the degree of Doctor of Music (DMus) honoris causa by the University of Leeds in 1992.[6]

References
  1. Interview: Dame Fanny Waterman at thejc.com
  2. Waterman, Dame Fanny (2015). My Life in Music. England: Faber Music. p. 51. ISBN 0-571-53918-1.
  3. "Dame Fanny Waterman" at Desert Island Discs, bbc.co.uk
  4. "Interview - Dame Fanny Waterman". The Jewish Chronicle. 8 July 2010. Retrieved 31 January 2019.
  5. Dame Fanny Waterman talks about her remarkable life in music as she turns 100
  6. University of Leeds, List of Honorary Graduates Archived 1 August 2013 at the Wayback Machine

Further reading
  • Cummings, David M.; McIntire, Dennis K. (Ed.). International Who's Who in Music and Musician's Directory. In the Classical and Light Classical Fields, 12th edition 1990/91, International Who's Who in Music 1991.
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