Lilian Elkington

Biography

LifeLilian Mary Elkington was born in Birmingham, Warwickshire.She began to learn the piano at the age of four and gave her first public performance at age six. 

She married Arthur Kennedy, violinist/violist, in 1926 and had one daughter, Mary Williams. In 1948 they moved from Birmingham to Bookham and then, in 1954, to East Horsley. She died on 13 August 1969 while on holiday in Austria. Sadly, when Arthur Kennedy remarried all of Elkington's works were ‘disposed of’. The four works known about were found by accident in a bookshop in Worthing by the distinguished musicologist, David Brown.

CareerElkington studied composition with Sir Granville Bantock at the Birmingham and Midland Institute School of Music. She also studied the organ and gained both the LRAM (Licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music and ARCO (Associate of the Royal College of Organists). Her first compositions were heard in 1921 at Harrogate and at Bournemouth. She gave many public concerts and recitals in Birmingham and other cities in England, both as soloist in piano concertos by Beethoven, Grieg, Schumann and others, but also as an accompanist and in chamber music ensembles.

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