Rhondda Gillespie

Rhondda Marie Gillespie was born in Sydney in 1941, the only child of architect David Gillespie and his wife Marie (née Saywell). At age 8 she played Manuel de Falla's Ritual Fire Dance on Jack Davey's radio show Star Search. She gave her first public recital at 12. Her formal studies were at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music under Alexander Sverjensky (where her fellow students included Malcolm Williamson, Richard Farrell and Roger Woodward) and in Britain under Louis Kentner and Denis Matthews. She was the second wife of the music critic and musicologist Denby Richards. They married on 29 May 1973, but divorced in 1977. ==Death==

Rhondda Gillespie ceased playing in the 1990s due to arthritis in her fingers. She had come to spend much of her time (including the English winters) in Barbados, ==Awards==

She won the Harriet Cohen Commonwealth Medal in 1959. ==Recordings==

Rhondda Gillespie's recordings included: • the world premiere recording of the piano sonata by Constant Lambert (1974) • Usko Meriläinen's First Piano Concerto (Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Walter Susskind) • Franz Liszt's Weihnachtsbaum, Sonata in B minor, Consolations and 2 Ballades • music by Charles Camilleri, Percy Grainger and Johann Sebastian Bach. ==References==