Eunice Norton

Who was Eunice Norton?

Eunice Norton was an American pianist.

Norton was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She studied as a child at the University of Minnesota with William Lindsay, who later introduced her to Dame Myra Hess. Hess was so impressed with the 15-year-old Norton's playing that she arranged for Norton to study in England in 1923 with Hess's own mentor, the famed pedagogue Tobias Matthay, with whom Norton would remain in association for 8 years.

Eunice Norton made her first appearance within that same year with the Queen’s Hall Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Sir Henry Wood, who subsequently took Norton on tour as soloist throughout the provinces. She played many recitals at that time in Wigmore Hall, and was soloist with the Manchester, Birmingham, and B.B.C. Symphonies under Sirs Hamilton Harty and Adrian Boult.

After winning the Chappell Gold Medal and the London Bach Prize in 1927, she performed in Vienna, The Hague, Paris, and Leipzig with the famous Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. In Berlin alone, she gave more than twenty concerts to dazzling critical reviews, including a Bach concert about which musicologist and critic Alfred Einstein wrote, "Her Bach is played as Bach would have wished to hear it." In Amsterdam, Paderewski said after hearing her Chopin, "You will play in all the great halls of the world."