Gertrude Huntly Green

Huntly Green, Gertrude

Gertrude Huntly Green (b Huntley, m Green, m Durand). Pianist, teacher, b St Thomas, Ont, July 1889, d Victoria, BC,10 Jan 1987. During her career she spelled her family name Huntley and Huntly. She studied with William Caven Barron at the London (Ont) Conservatory of Music, winning the Barron gold medal and the Heintzman scholarship in 1901. She continued violin and piano studies in Detroit and in Paris, where she made her piano debut 5 Mar 1908 at the Salle Erard in a joint program with her instructors, the pianist Moritz Moszkowski (who ended an 11-year retirement to perform) and the violinist Albert Geloso. She subsequently gave recitals in France, England, Canada and the USA. Huntly Green settled in Victoria, BC, ca 1914, and was active there as a teacher of advanced piano students and as a performer. She also conducted an orchestra that assisted in wartime fund-raising projects. She made a number of Canadian tours and was admired for her work with the Hart House String Quartet. Leopold Godowsky declared her to be 'the future woman champion pianist,' and in 1920 she assisted him in his master classes. She studied in the late 1920s with Nicolai Medtner in Germany and recorded his Fairy Tale and Danza Festiva for Ampico Piano Rolls (listed in the 1929 Ampico catalogue).Returning to British Columbia in the 1940s, she actively supported the Victoria Musical Art Society, the Victoria Symphony Orchestra and the Victoria Conservatory of Music. She continued to perform publicly until 1960.