Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Pianist and accompanist, renowned for touring with leading singers and instrumentalists, bringing a virtuoso technique to the supporting role.
On the island
Eight records
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:08Geoffrey, whereabouts in Australia were you born? Do you come from a musical family?
Not particularly musical. No. Mother and Dad both sang in the church choir. That was about the extent of their musical activities.
Presenter asks
0:32When did you decide that music was to be your career?
Well, I rather took to it like a duck to water at the age of seven, the first piano lesson. I remember particularly I used to love Saturday mornings because on Saturday mornings I had a music lesson and clean sheets. But the actual decision to have music as a career was sort of lingering in the back of my mind for right from the very beginning. Yes. And it developed up to about 12, and then I really began to think of it.
Presenter asks
1:10When did you start taking a special interest in accompanying?
Uh rather later on, because naturally as a pianist one has to be trained as a piano player, uh whatever aspect of the profession one's taking up. But at about seventeen I had already been playing for my colleagues at the Conservatorium, anybody who needed playing for. And then in nineteen forty eight, when I was eighteen, Australian Broadcasting Commission asked me to do a tour of Australia with Essie Ackland and a violinist called Carmel Haekendorf and these two ladies I accompanied and also played solos on the same programme and very quickly discovered that it was the accompanying part of the programme I preferred.
The keepsakes
The luxury
Not recorded.
Presenter asks
2:29You were barely out of your teens when you came to England. What decided you on that step?
Our Peter Dawson, in fact. I did a tour of Australia with him. That was my second Australian tour. And in the course of that, he asked me to go to New Zealand with him, which I did. And in the course of that New Zealand tour, he said that there was a tour of Canada and of England coming up. Would I do it with him? And I jumped at it, of course. But unfortunately, the Canadian part of the tour fell through. And so I said to him, Look, if you're still going to England, if I pay my own fare, can I come and play for you when I get there? So, consequently, I was one of the very lucky Australians who came over here with work to do.
Presenter asks
3:05Did you find after you left Peter Dawson that opportunities came fairly readily?
Uh they didn't come all that readily at all, but there were some people who did take a an interest in me, uh most especially Ann Ziegler and Webster Booth, with whom I did a lot of concerts.
Presenter asks
8:47Despite his important role, the accompanist gets his name in smaller type. Do you ever regret not ever having become a soloist?
Only financially? That's a good point. You feel fulfilled. Completely fulfilled. I really do. Musically and personally. I'm doing exactly what I always wanted to do and now I'm privileged to be doing it with great artists. So consequently I'm getting all that one could hope for from life.
“I was the lucky one because I was the third of three sons and uh after the depression was over uh I was the lucky one who got uh a term of thirteen piano lessons for two guineas.”
“the actual decision to have music as a career was sort of lingering in the back of my mind for right from the very beginning. Yes. And it developed up to about 12, and then I really began to think of it.”
“A lot of people think that because you're an accompanist it's because you didn't succeed at playing the piano well enough to be a soloist. It's not that at all.”
“I was very much the baby of the music staff. Well, I was twenty-five, and I remember I was paid nine pounds a week for what I did there, and that meant something of a long day, every day. But we had a tremendous amount of fun as well”