Winifred Scott Wood

Winifred Scott Wood

Winifred (Jean) Wood (b Scott). Pianist, teacher, born Winnipeg 18 May 1924, died Victoria 16 May 2012; LRSM, honorary ARAM. Winifred Scott was a pupil of Gwendda Owen Davies in Winnipeg; Frank Mannheimer 1944-6 in New York; and Hilda Dederich, Herbert Murrill, and Myra Hess in 1946 at the Royal Academy of Music (RAM), London, on an Associated Board scholarship. Scott also studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris before joining the staff of the RAM in 1948 as a teacher of graduate students. In the ensuing years she played concertos with several British orchestras and gave many BBC recitals. She returned to Canada in 1965 with her husband, the pianist Robin Wood; the couple later toured Canada giving two-piano recitals.

Teaching Activities

Winifred Scott Wood taught piano 1965-71 at the Victoria School (Conservatory) of Music, served 1971-3 as registrar of the conservatory, and in 1973 became vice-principal. She became vice-principal emeritus in June 1985 and also was head of the piano faculty. Besides performing she gave master classes, adjudicated at festivals and held workshops throughout British Columbia and elsewhere in Canada. She continued to teach students from all over British Columbia until 2012. She was the founder (in 1975) and director of the two-year diploma program in teacher training. She also wrote articles on pedagogical subjects for the B.C. Registered Music Teachers' Association magazine Provincial Newsletter.

Awards

Wood became an honorary life member of the BC Registered Music Teachers' Association in 1995. She was also an honorary citizen of Victoria, and in 2004 received the BC Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2009 Wood was a recipient of the Canadian Federation of Music Teachers' Association Hugheen Ferguson Distinguished Teacher Award. The Victoria Conservatory of Music's Robin and Winifred Wood Recital Hall was dedicated in honor of Wood and her husband.