Elsie Hall

Elsie Maude Stanley Hall (22 June 1877 – 27 June 1976), commonly referred to as Elsie Stanley Hall, was an Australian-born South African classical pianist. As a child prodigy performing in Europe she was dubbed "the Antipodean Phenomenon".

Child prodigy and education Hall was born in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia, the oldest daughter of William Stanley Hall (c.1845 – 19 June 1927), founding editor of the Fiji Times and later on the literary staff of the Sydney Morning Herald, and his wife Mary Ann, née Sadgrove, a piano teacher. The name "Stanley" was carried in recognition of his mother's family. She was a sister of Rev. Jacob Stanley, president of the British Wesleyan Methodist Conference, In 1888, she was enrolled at the Stuttgart Conservatory in Germany.

The same year she was awarded a pianoforte scholarship at the Royal College of Music, but declined and instead studied at Harrow Music School under John Farmer, and then at the Royal High School for Music in Berlin, where she studied with Ernst Rudorff, met Brahms, Clara Schumann and Joachim, and won the Mendelssohn Prize. In 1911 she also taught the 14 year-old Princess Mary at Marlborough House.

She married South African scientist Dr. Frederick Otto Stohr, originally Stöhr (1871–1946), in London on 22 November 1913. He had been conducting ornithological research in Northern Rhodesia (modern Zambia); they settled in South Africa, where he later practised medicine. When her father retired he moved to South Africa to live with his daughter and son-in-law.

Hall spent many years in South Africa but continued to perform internationally. She appeared at the Proms under Henry Wood in 1929, and in 1935 she toured Australia, giving two Bach recitals in Sydney and playing the Schumann Concerto with the Sydney State Orchestra. During the war, although by then in her 60s, she entertained Allied troops in North Africa and Italy. One of her two sons was killed while on active service in the South African Air Force. In 1967 she recorded a 90th anniversary concert recital. She appeared as a castaway on the BBC Radio programme Desert Island Discs on 28 April 1969. That year she also published her autobiography, The Good Die Young. Hall died, aged 99, at Wynberg, South Africa, and was buried at Hout Bay Cemetery.