Valda Aveling

Who was Valda Aveling?

Valda Rose Aveling OBE was an Australian pianist, harpsichordist and clavichordist. Her repertoire was very wide, including composers as diverse as William Byrd, Jan Sweelinck, Sergei Rachmaninoff and Béla Bartók.

Valda Aveling was born in Sydney, the youngest of four girls and a boy, and showed great talent at an early age. At 16 she received teaching and performing diplomas from the NSW Conservatorium of Music, and performed in the Sydney Eisteddfod in 1935 where she won the Sydney Eisteddfod Australian Women's Weekly 100 pound pianoforte scholarship for the most talented juvenile pianist. She then left for Britain to study harpsichord and clavichord with Violet Gordon-Woodhouse. She returned in 1938 to make her piano debut under Malcolm Sargent, at the Sydney Town Hall. In one concert in Manila, she played Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 and Beethoven's Emperor Concerto. She later came to dislike Beethoven's music, saying there was "nothing light in it".

In 1947 she toured Australia for the Australian Broadcasting Commission, but returned to Britain by the early 1950s. For the next 30 years she appeared at major British festivals such as the Proms, and throughout the Far East, Europe and North America.