Mary Howell-pryce
Obituary: The teacher, pianist and harpsichordist Mary Howell-Pryce, who has died aged 77, will be remembered with gratitude by generations of piano pupils and students.
My partner, the teacher, pianist and harpsichordist Mary Howell-Pryce, who has died aged 77, will be remembered with gratitude by generations of piano pupils and students, most particularly in Oxford, where she had lived and taught since 1956, but also in her native mid-Wales and Shrewsbury.
Born and brought up in the rolling hill country of Kerry, Montgomeryshire, Mary inherited the quiet, hardworking but unfussy manner of many a mid-Wales farming community in the late 1920s and early 30s. These traits and virtues never left her and in 1988, following her retirement, she was awarded an MMus in harpsichord performance from Reading University.
At 16, she gained a place at the Royal Academy of Music, studying piano and viola. To her surprise, she took to the capital like a duck to water, attending concerts and galleries, often in the company of her landlady Marjorie Horne, who introduced Mary to the work of Patrick Heron, Bernard Leach and other leading artists of the day.
The pinnacle of her teaching career was as director of music (1967-87) at St Edmund Campion school (later St Augustine's), Iffley, Oxford. There, her warmth and openness to all kinds of music created an atmosphere of mutual learning, which nurtured such future talents as composer Laurence Crane and free-jazz musician Pat Thomas.
"Retirement" was not an option for Mary. She devoted her days to learning skills including Latin, Egyptian dance and, most significantly, her native Welsh tongue. This last she achieved comprehensively and fluently enough to enable her to read poetry and prose in Welsh. She was made a bard of the Gorsedd on two occasions and was an active secretary of the Oxford branch of the Welsh-speaking conversational group Cyd. Gardening also featured as a daily and vital part of her routine, and our garden was invariably packed with lovingly tended exotics.
Apart from our 24 years of making music together, Mary introduced me to the beauties of the Llyn peninsula, the writings of RS Thomas and that wonderful mountain road over Dylife that winds down to Machynlleth - epiphanies in my life for which praise and thanks, however tendered, seem barely adequate.
She is survived by the children, Bryn, Sian and Rhodri, of her marriage to Glyn.
Born and brought up in the rolling hill country of Kerry, Montgomeryshire, Mary inherited the quiet, hardworking but unfussy manner of many a mid-Wales farming community in the late 1920s and early 30s. These traits and virtues never left her and in 1988, following her retirement, she was awarded an MMus in harpsichord performance from Reading University.
At 16, she gained a place at the Royal Academy of Music, studying piano and viola. To her surprise, she took to the capital like a duck to water, attending concerts and galleries, often in the company of her landlady Marjorie Horne, who introduced Mary to the work of Patrick Heron, Bernard Leach and other leading artists of the day.
The pinnacle of her teaching career was as director of music (1967-87) at St Edmund Campion school (later St Augustine's), Iffley, Oxford. There, her warmth and openness to all kinds of music created an atmosphere of mutual learning, which nurtured such future talents as composer Laurence Crane and free-jazz musician Pat Thomas.
"Retirement" was not an option for Mary. She devoted her days to learning skills including Latin, Egyptian dance and, most significantly, her native Welsh tongue. This last she achieved comprehensively and fluently enough to enable her to read poetry and prose in Welsh. She was made a bard of the Gorsedd on two occasions and was an active secretary of the Oxford branch of the Welsh-speaking conversational group Cyd. Gardening also featured as a daily and vital part of her routine, and our garden was invariably packed with lovingly tended exotics.
Apart from our 24 years of making music together, Mary introduced me to the beauties of the Llyn peninsula, the writings of RS Thomas and that wonderful mountain road over Dylife that winds down to Machynlleth - epiphanies in my life for which praise and thanks, however tendered, seem barely adequate.
She is survived by the children, Bryn, Sian and Rhodri, of her marriage to Glyn.
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